


First Dates Are Like Homeless Vagrants

by atlas (cissysullivan)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angels, F/F, Self Harm, Suicide Attempts, Vessels, claire novak - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-16 23:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2288546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cissysullivan/pseuds/atlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claire Novak is at an insane asylum, repeatedly trying to kill herself. The grace inside her keeps her alive while killing the other patients instead. Krissy Chambers goes undercover as an intern at the hospital to investigate the deaths and finds the girl with stardust in her veins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Before

**Author's Note:**

> I would strongly suggest listening to the playlist for this on repeat whilst you read the fic. It'll give you more of a feel for what my version of this world is: http://8tracks.com/cloudsong1994/first-dates-are-like-homeless-vagrants

_Gretna, New Orleans, 2011_

The interrogation room had whitewashed walls, a stainless steel door, a matching table and chair, and a large one-way mirror taking up most of the wall to the right of the door. Anyone who had not been arrested before, might’ve been looking around or shaking in their boots, but Claire was staring at her hands, cuffed to the table. She’d done this before and there was no doubt in her mind that before she died she would do this again.

The insides of police stations were not something any hunter was unfamiliar with.

Two years ago, nearly two years after her father had been repossessed by the angel Castiel and left her family, after her mother had sent her to numerous therapists each as unhelpful and ineffective as the next, after she learned the whispering inside her head was not a sign of insanity but the voices of _other_ angels communicating with one another, Claire had hit the road. She’d abandoned her mother, gotten a tattoo of a pentagram emblazoned by what appeared to be a star in between her shoulder blades, and started hunting. Very quickly, she became very good at what she was doing. She annihilated entire nests of vampires, exorcised hundreds of demons, and defeated an alpha werewolf. She killed wendigos, banished ghosts, and destroyed shapeshifters. She eradicated ghouls, slaughtered rougarous, and slayed black dogs. She took down anything that crossed her path. But she had a specialty, something that was more important to her that she eliminate than anything else.

Angels.

When she’d first begun hunting, it had been her intention to destroy all of the angels, every single one she could get her hands on. However, when it became clear to her this would not be nearly as easy as she’d thought it would be, she decided to compile a list of all the known angels, both on Earth and still in Heaven, so she would know who she’d destroyed and who she still had yet to take out. It had taken her years and she was still working on it, but she was getting closer to finishing it and whenever she thought about that, she couldn’t stop the smile that would cross her lips.

Ever since the supernatural world had broken down the front door of Claire’s life, nothing had been easy. Everything had been horribly, irrevocably hard, but once she’d run away, once she’d started hunting, everything seemed to make a little more sense, everything seemed to be just a little be easier. When she was hunting, Claire was able to do things she couldn’t do any other time.

But running away from your already overprotective mother at fourteen had a cost. Being gone for two years and avoiding all Amber Alerts issued in your name was hard and, if you got caught, had an even higher cost. And that was the reason Claire was sitting in the interrogation room right now. She was in New Orleans, almost five hundred miles away from ‘home’ and she was being forced to wait while her mother got a plane from Pontiac, Illinois to Louisiana. She had to do something before her mother got here.

Her fingers clenched on the stainless steel tabletop. She watched as her knuckles turned white from the effort. She couldn’t go back to the apple pie life her mother had been trying to establish for them ever since Jimmy had been taken away. She couldn’t live that way anymore. Any chance of her having a normal life was destroyed when Castiel entered her body and left a bit of his grace behind when he exited.

The door to the interrogation room opened and Claire looked up from her bloodless knuckles to see two police officers, a woman and a man, both of whom had been speaking with her regularly since her arrest, enter the room. She sat back in her chair and stared at them. She’d yet to say a word to either of them.

“Your mother will be here soon, Claire,” the woman said, smiling gently, sitting in the chair across from Claire. She slid a file, Claire was assuming it was her own, across the table to her. She glanced at it and saw security camera photos of herself, only a few days before her arrest. She was still wondering how they’d found her all the way in New Orleans. “She’ll be very happy to see you. Once she arrives, we can begin to put this…mishap behind us.”

Claire couldn’t stop herself from scoffing. She sounded more like one of Claire’s many ex-therapists rather than a cop.

The woman’s smile faltered, but she continued to say, “We can make this a lot easier if you would just tell my partner and I what you’ve been doing for the past two years or even what made you decide to run away in the first place. It would help us - and you - out a lot.”

Claire continued to say nothing. She only sighed, slumped in her seat and stared at the two-way mirror. She wondered if there was anyone behind it and, if there was, what they found so interesting about the story of a sixteen year old teenage runaway. Did they really have nothing better to do with their time?

“Miss Novak, if you don’t tell us what’s going on, we’re going to have to assume the worst and place you in foster care rather than allow you to go home with your mother.” It was the male cop that was speaking now.

Claire looked up at him curiously. Wouldn’t that be a relief. Escaping foster care would be so much easier than escaping her mother.

“I don’t think you want that and I know your mother does not want that. It would not be fair to her to put you in a place where she would be unable to see you, but, if you don’t tell us what’s going on, then we’ll assume she was abusing you and that is what caused your runaway, so foster care will be your only option.”

She went back to staring at the wall.

Both of the cops sighed.

“We’ll return shortly, Miss Novak,” the male cop said and they left.

The moment the door closed behind them, Claire surreptitiously leaned forward and placed her hands on the file, flipping through the papers and pictures, pretending to be interested in what she was seeing, pretending that she cared about what people were saying about her, pretending she was thinking about cooperating. What she was really interested in was the paperclip near the bottom left corner. Could the cops really have been so stupid as to let a paperclip lie in their file? Maybe they didn’t think a sixteen year old girl that looked as frail and sick as she did knew how to pick a lock. The thought made her smirk.

Sometimes it was pleasing to know people still underestimated her.

With a smoothness she’d learned early on in her hunting career, Claire removed the paperclip from the side of the file and continued to look through it for a couple more seconds before she stopped and slumped in her chair again. She began to carefully unravel the little bit of metal before inserting one of the ends into the small circular hole in her handcuffs. When she heard it click, she didn’t react. She only readjusted the the clip and began to work at the other cuff. She was almost done when the cops walked back in. She curled the paperclip back up in her other hand and gave the man and woman impassive looks.

“Are you ready to cooperate, Claire?” the man asked.

She pretended to think. She put on her most solemn face and nodded.

Both of the cops smiled and she almost felt bad for deceiving them. But only almost.

She waited until they were sitting down, one on the table edge next to her, one across from her, before she stood, ripping the handcuffs away from the metal handle that was in the middle of the table. Before either of the cops could react, she launched herself over the table towards the door, but the male cop, the one who had been sitting across from her, grabbing her from behind. She slammed her head back into his nose and elbowed him in the ribs, forcing him to let her go. She whirled around and smashed her fist into his face. He reeled and stumbled up against the table. It made a horrible squeaking sound as it was pushed along the concrete floor of the room.

In retrospect, she shouldn’t have done it, she shouldn’t have taken the extra time to gloat, to make the man remember the incident forever, but in the moment, it seemed like a good idea and while the female cop was radioing for help, she grabbed the lapels of the male cop’s shirt, pulled his face to hers and hissed, “I’ll tell you everything you need to know right now. My name is Claire Novak. I’m from Pontiac, Illinois. My father was murdered by an angel four years ago. I’m collecting halos. _Don’t_ interfere.”

She dropped him and turned around, but that was all the farther she got before a fist connected with her jaw so hard she spun in a circle before she collapsed to the floor. The world spun around her in a whirlwind of unidentifiable objects and colors before she fell completely unconscious.

* * *

The next time Claire opened her eyes, she was found she was lying down in another room made of whitewashed cinderblocks. The first thing she saw was the singular fluorescent bar on her ceiling, but it wasn’t on. The light in this room was dim and came from a natural source rather than the unlit bulb overhead. The window was behind her and when she pushed herself up on the hard, thin mattress covered in white linens to look at it, she saw there were iron bars in front of it, cutting her view of the outside world into long rectangles.

It took her only a second longer to realize exactly where she was.

A hospital, a psychiatric hospital. For dangerous patients.

Her fingers gripped the cool linen beneath her, making the blankets bunch up and wrinkle. She curled her legs closer to herself and wondered who had changed her from her black skinny jeans, long-sleeved shirt, and boots to these gray sweatpants. She wasn’t even wearing any underwear. Even girls who hadn’t had normal lives since they were twelve got around enough to hear the horror stories about asylums that tortured and killed their patients in various ways.

“Miss Novak?”

The voice made Claire very nearly jump out of her skin and when she turned to see where it had come from, she spotted a woman dressed in pale blue scrubs sitting on a white plastic chair next to her bed. The woman gave Claire a worried smile and said, “You’re probably wondering where you are right now and what’s going on.”

Claire scoffed. That was an understatement.

“And I’m here to tell you that everything is going to be okay,” the woman continued, ignoring Claire’s reaction completely. “I know this place is scary and different, but we’re here to help you and keep you safe.”

Claire pressed her back up against the wall next to her bed, pulled her legs up against her chest, and wrapped her arms around them. She turned her face to the window and watched the birds outside building a nest in the leafless tree pressing up against the glass. She forced herself to be calm.

The woman didn’t seem to mind that Claire seemed to be blatantly ignoring her and continued speaking. “You’re here because you hit a police officer, tried to escape police custody, and refused to speak to or cooperate with the officers who were in charge of you. The officers, and your mother who arrived shortly after you’d been subdued, believe that it is best if you stay here for a while. Everyone thinks it’s in your best interests if we keep you here and spend time evaluating your state of mind, so we can best figure out how to help you. The sooner we know how to help you, the sooner we can get you that help and you can leave, but we can only help you if you tell us what you’re thinking.”

Here the woman paused, almost as though she thought her little speech would have inspired Claire to start talking.

But Claire said nothing. She only continued staring out the window.

“Since you’re going to be here for a little while, you should know how we run things here in this ward. You’ll be expected to attend group therapy three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. You will be expected to eat breakfast at 7 a.m., lunch at noon, and dinner at 5 p.m. Snacks are optional and will be served at 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. You will be expected to be in bed every night at 9 p.m. with lights out at 11 p.m. You will be allowed outside every day from noon to 5 p.m. There are also art classes you can attend in the morning and afternoon and a library you can visit with a chaperone to select some books you can bring back to your room to read. Finally, you will be allowed to see your mother on visiting day every other Saturday during your outside time.”

The woman paused again. The pause was longer this time, but all that filled it was silence. Finally, she stood and said, “My name is Doctor Patrickson. If you need anything you can press that red button on the wall near your door and I or another doctor or nurse will come to assist you.”

Claire didn’t turn away from the window to look.

In fact, she didn’t move at all until she heard the door shut behind the woman.

Slowly, almost impossibly so, she tore her gaze away from the birds outside her window, away the from the bars that had been placed in front of it, away from the dull gray sky stretching out above them all, and stopped it on the door across from her. It was as white as the walls around it, so it was little more than a rectangle cut into the plaster, but it was the only way in and out of this room and, more likely than not, it was locked from the outside. The only way Claire would ever be able to leave her room was if someone let her out. She wouldn’t be able to escape then. She didn’t know the layout of the hospital. She didn’t know the quickest way to the exit, and, even if she did, there was a chance _it_ was locked as well.

Claire lay down on the bed, her face pressing into the pillow. She clutched at the sheet. She grimaced. And then she screamed and screamed and screamed.


	2. Un

_Two years later_

_Bethrock Asylum for Troubled Youth_

_Batman Island, New Orleans 2013_

Though Bethrock Asylum for Troubled Youth was located in New Orleans with the ocean less than a mile away and palm trees lining the streets, it seemed as though the sky were perpetually gray. If Claire were to say this to Doctor Patrickson, she knew the woman would only tell her that it was her state of mind that was causing her to feel this way. After she got over the shock of Claire speaking that is. Ever since she’d arrived at the asylum, she hadn’t spoken and she had no intention of doing so any time soon.

It was the only power she had in this place and yet, at the same time, it was also her downfall. She’d been here two years and hadn’t spoken a word. The doctors and nurses kept telling her if she would only tell them what was going on, they could start helping her get better, but Claire knew that could never happen. Even if she were stupid enough to tell the truth, they’d just commit her for life. As it was, it was looking more and more like that was how she was going to end up.

Very quickly, she’d realized that escaping this asylum would be a lot harder than she’d thought. Just as she’d suspected her first day there, every section of the hospital was barred off, only accessible if you had a keycard, which all of the staff did and, even then, there were places she wouldn’t be able to get to unless she had a key, something else all of the staff possessed. However, even if she could knock one of the nurses unconscious, steal their keycard and key, and get out the door, she’d still have to scale the chain link fence, hidden by hedges, topped with barbed wire. She could do it. Of that she had no doubt, but the hospital was in the middle of nowhere. There was nothing for miles. There was no way she could hotwire a car because there _were_ none. She could try to hitch a ride, but cars rarely passed this way and, when they did, they more likely than not ambulances carrying new patients.

In the end, she had come to the conclusion that the only way she was getting out of this place was with help and, since she could find no kindred spirits within any of the staff, she didn’t think she was going to be able to leave. Not for a very long time.

Every other Saturday, just as Doctor Patrickson had told her when she’d first arrived, her mother came to see her. Though Claire was not cooperating and spoke with no one, including her mother when she was there, she was still allowed to see her and, though she would never admit it, glad she could. Her mother would follow her around the perimeter of the grounds every time she came, talking to her, telling her the same thing each time: if she’d only speak with them, tell them what was going on, what she was _thinking_ when she ran away from home, when she attacked that police officer, then things could start to get better, but Claire hardly listened. It was the same thing the doctors and nurses told her, the same thing she’d heard every day since she arrived. She didn’t enjoy her mother’s visits for her chatter. She simply enjoyed her company.

What she enjoyed more than anything else was her time spent outside. The air was always fresh, the sun was always bright, and the breezes were always warm. Sometimes if she turned in the right direction, she could smell the salt of the sea as the wind blew off the ocean. She wondered how long she would have to walk to get to the beach and if she would ever see the vast expanse of water, going on forever ever again.

And that was where she was now. Sitting outside on the backgrounds of the asylum, a gentle spring breeze lifting her golden hair and the feathers of the four dead birds spread out in front of her.

She always managed to escape the watchful eye of the nurse who was meant to be her chaperone every time she was allowed outside. The nurses had stopped trying to keep her in their charge she did it so often, but the reason she did it was not to aggravate them, though, she had to admit, that _was_ part of the fun.

The main reason she made sure she was far away from her chaperone before went to her small collection of feathered friends or searched the grounds for more was because the first time she had found a dead bird, a swallow it had been, when she’d held it in her hands and cradled it, gently lifting and inspecting the wings, the nurse walking with her had screamed. This, of course, caused an uproar on the grounds. Some of the other patients were triggered by the sound and more than six people ended up in solitary confinement, though Claire did not know this until later after she’d spent nearly three hours locked up in her room herself. She’d been marched down to Doctor Patrickson’s office and she’d laid herself down on the black leather couch there, staring at the ceiling, counting the tiles, though she already knew how many there were as the woman spoke to her.

“Why did you pick up the dead bird, Claire?” she’d begun.

Claire, of course, said nothing, only continued staring at the ceiling, counting the tiles.

1...2...3...4…

“Why did you start playing with it?”

Claire let out a frustrated sigh. She hadn’t been playing with it. She’d been examining it. There was a difference. Clearly no one could see that.

10...11...12...13…

“Do you like dead things?”

17...18...19...20…

“Why do you think that is?”

Claire let out another frustrated sigh. She’d never said she like dead things.

“You know, Claire, we can’t get anywhere and we can’t help you unless you tell us what’s going on. I know I’ve said this before, but it just doesn’t seem to be getting through. You have to talk if you ever want to go home.”

But that was just the thing.

She _didn’t_ want to go home. She wanted to continue what she’d been doing before she’d been sent to this nuthouse.

She wanted to continue hunting.

After a few more questions similar to the ones before, Doctor Patrickson called a nurse to escort Claire back to her room. She was confined to her bedroom for a full day for the panic she incited during the dead bird incident. When she went outside the after and checked the spot where the bird had been, it was gone. She figured that the groundskeeper had disposed of it. Ever afterwards, whenever she found a dead bird, she would, in a roundabout way, escape from the site of her chaperone before she took the bird to a hidden corner she’d discovered near the wall of the asylum and place it in a bush there. Once the birds started to decay, she’d bury them, but before then, she would study them.

She knew if Doctor Patrickson really knew that she was _fascinated_ by the dead birds rather than infatuated with death, the woman would still try to get her to tell her why that was, but, if she was going to be honest, even she didn’t know. The birds were like her pets, she supposed, the only ones she felt understood her. It didn’t make sense even to her that she would feel this way, especially when the creatures were dead, but, after her father disappeared from her life, after she was possessed by an angel, after her life changed erratically forever, death had always seemed to appeal to Claire more than life.

Maybe she was a little infatuated with death after all.

The day was warm, but the sky above her was as gray as the clothes she was made to wear and the wind blew in great gusts, throwing the branches of the trees through the air and pushing the clouds across the sky. Claire squinted and looked up, watching the clouds hurry along their way. She wondered where heaven was exactly. She doubted it was as beautiful as a castle or garden, floating along with the clouds, which was how she’d imagined it when she was a little girl, before all of this.

Turning her gaze away from the sky, she focused on the four dead birds in front of her. There was a sparrow, a swallow, a robin, and a chickadee. It was sad they’d died, she thought, in such a dismal place. They’d each broken their necks running into the windows. She walked along the edge of the building, searching for other birds that had died this way each time she was allowed outside. She found three or four birds a month doing this. If that many birds were dying because they thought they could go through glass, she wondered why the hospital staff didn’t put black window stickers that were shaped like hawks on the glass to prevent it from happening so often.

If she was going to be honest with herself, she could answer that easily.

They didn’t know how many birds were dying because she salvaged them all. She kept them as company and then, after a few days, buried them the way the groundskeeper never would if he were the one collecting them. The flower patches were now littered with teeny tiny graves for each winged friend she’d put into the ground.

A buzzing sound came from seemingly far off.

The sound that issued from the speakers built into the walls of the asylum when it was time for the patients to return inside. They called it a bell, but it sounded more like the buzzer that went off each time doors were opened in between different sections of the place.

It was what made the asylum even more like a prison.

Very slowly, Claire picked up the birds. She placed them back in the flowerbed before she got to her feet and began slowly walking back towards the front of the building.

When she reached her nurse chaperone, the woman didn’t even ask where she’d been. Her running off was so common at this point that no one questioned it or tried to stop it. The nurse only sighed and placed a hand on the small of Claire’s back, pushing her inside. Claire had to bite her lip to keep herself from automatically flinching away from the woman’s touch.

The patients were led from the outdoors to their bedrooms, each pushed gently through the door before the door was locked behind them. When Claire was once again within the four white walls that had become her own these past two years, she slumped against the door and slid down the wood to the ground, her eyes closed. She dropped her head, her chin less than an inch away from her chest, her golden hair shielding her face from the gray light filtering in through the bars over her window. Her nails dug into the dirty linoleum on either side of her and she wondered if it would ever end.

Tilting her head back up, Claire opened her eyes and glanced towards her desk. There were no drawers on the desk and the thing was made of fake plastic wood, but what she had hidden on it didn’t need to be hidden within a drawer. It fit fine within the confines of the pages of one of the many books stacked on top of it.

Claire pushed herself to her feet and walked over to her desk. She opened the book on top and took out her weapon of choice: a razor blade taken from a shaving razor. Small, but sharp. Little, but dangerous. It would do the job.

She tilted her head to one side as she pushed up the sleeves of her gray sweatshirt. This would be the fourth time now.

She looked down at her arm, ticking off each incident in her head.

The first time, she’d climbed one of the trees, throwing herself from its branches, knowing she would land in such a way that her neck would break. She awoke less than an hour later on the grass, unharmed save for a throbbing in her neck. No one seemed to have noticed her. On the contrary, everyone seemed to be crowded around another tree across the grounds. She’d gotten to her feet, stumbled over, still rubbing the back of her neck and found that another patient seemed to have had the same idea she did, but they’d succeeded. She’d just thought it was a coincidence and envied them for their success and her failure.

The second time, she’d taken a bath, tied weights to her arms, and let the waves rock her to sleep. Only a few minutes later, she opened her eyes again, her head above the water, the weights gone, and heard a commotion just outside of her bathroom. She got out of the tub, wrapped a towel around herself, and poked her head out the door. She watched a small group of doctors and nurses crowd into the bathroom next to hers. A short while later, another small group of nurses came down the hall with a gurney and, a short while after that, the gurney was rolled away, with a white sheet covering a body. A hand dangled out from underneath the sheet and Claire could see red welts on the wrist. They had drowned themselves in the exact same way Claire had tried to. She stumbled back into her own bathroom, scared, and stayed there until a nurse forced her to come out.

The third time was an act of desperation and she ran past a startled nurse into the street as a car was barreling down the road. They didn’t stop for her. They didn’t even slow down or honk. She felt nothing when the car slammed into her. Only it didn’t. It was only a couple seconds later she woke up by the side of the road with a nurse fanning her, telling her she’d passed out on the front steps of the hospital when another patient had run into the street and gotten run over by a car. Claire gave the nurse a startled look and ran back inside to her bedroom. She curled up on her bed, trying to make sense of what was happening for hours. She didn’t eat her dinner that night.

The timeframe between each incident was only a couple of weeks. Now Claire had waited months, seeing if anything else would happen, seeing if this was what she thought it was or if it was something else. Then she came up with a way she was certain couldn’t be transferred to someone else. She would be alone in her room. She would watch as her life left her. This time she was going to succeed. This time, no one else would get hurt.

And yet she hesitated.

To be honest, that was still just a theory. She didn’t know for certain that being separated from everyone else in a room of her own and watching herself die would guarantee her death and the safety of others.

She bit her lip and stared at her pale wrist, and suddenly it was too much for her. So what if someone else ended up dying? She was just trying to _escape_ and she deserved to do something for herself. If she succeeded, then she would be free. If she failed, she wouldn’t try again, simple as that.

Letting out a calming breath, Claire pressed the razorblade to the inside of her forearm and, pressing it as deep into her skin as she possibly could, pulled it down. She let out a gasp of shock at the pain and then watched in fascination as her skin parted, flayed open by her own doing, and a bright warm red substance rose to the surface.

The sight made her smile.

Her blood. She was going to watch herself bleed out.

What an exciting prospect.

Without preamble, she slit open her other wrist and sat down on her bed, watching her blood stain her sheets, stain her clothes, her skin, and felt herself grow tired as her life force was drained from her.

She slumped off the bed to the linoleum floor, her arms on either side of her, bent at the elbow, her head turned to the left. She watched as more and more blood flowed from her, even though she was now lying down and it was harder for it to leave her body.

Her eyelids fluttered, the desperation for a deep sleep pulling at her.

A smile flickered across her lips.

Maybe this time it would work.

Maybe this time when she opened her eyes, she would wake up in a garden.

Yes.

A garden sounded nice.

A garden full of birds.

Claire Novak closed her eyes, a smile of true happiness gracing her lips for the first time in years. She let out a soft sigh and stopped breathing.

* * *

The delay between Claire breathing what she thought would be her last breath and her eyelids fluttering open and realizing she’d survived what should’ve been fatal attempt on her life, was far longer than any other time. When her eyes finally flickered from her clean wrist and the clean floor around her to the clock on the wall, she saw nearly an hour had passed.

An overwhelming disappointment gripped her and she curled in on herself, pulling her arms and legs to her chest, rolling over onto her side in a fetal position as she allowed herself to sob silently into the crook of her arm for a moment.

But only for a moment.

In the next moment, she was pushing herself up off the floor, no longer feeling surprised that there was no blood, and heading towards the door. She pressed the red button to call a nurse. If she was alive then, according to the trend, someone else in this hospital was dead and, maybe it was just morbid curiosity, maybe it was the hunter in her, but she wanted to know who it was.

A woman with a kind face opened the door for her and asked, “What do you need, sweetheart? What can I do for you?”

She was so sweet, Claire felt sad that she was working in a place like this.

Biting her lip, Claire pointed down the hall to the bathroom and crossed her legs slightly, hoping the woman would think it was an emergency.

“You need to use the bathroom?” the woman asked.

Claire nodded.

“Alright,” she said. “Come on.”

Claire followed her down the hall, half hoping they _wouldn’t_ pass the room of whomever had met their fate in the form of her failed suicide, but she was only half hoping that and, sure enough, when they turned the corner, there was the open door, the nurses looking in, other doctors lifting a body onto a gurney before covering it with a sheet. Claire’s steps stuttered as they walked by the door, but the woman wrapped an arm around her and hurried her along down the hall. Claire stared at the doorway over her shoulder until they turned the next corner.

“Terribly tragic,” the woman was saying. “Managed to somehow get a razorblade into his room and slit his wrists as soon as everyone came in from outside. No one knows why. He was an unhappy man, but no one thought he was _that_ unhappy.” She sighed. “Seems to be happening a lot lately.”

When they stopped at the bathroom, Claire practically ran inside. She locked the door behind her and pressed herself against the wood, breathing heavily for several seconds before she finally pushed away from the door and leaned against the sink, staring at the drain, bracing herself on either side of it with her hands.

What was going on? How was she still alive? She’d survived a broken neck, slit wrists, drowning, and being hit by a car. Any normal person would’ve have survived _any_ of those.

And that was when it hit her.

She wasn’t a normal person.

Not even by hunter standards.

There was the remains of an angel’s grace flowing through her veins.

And Claire was willing to bet her life – her life that she couldn’t seem to lose or control or do _anything_ she wanted with – that it was this very same grace that was keeping her alive.

Her fingers curled around the edges of the sink. She could feel herself beginning to shake. Whether it was with rage or frustration she didn’t know. What she did know was that she couldn’t control anything, not even if she wanted to die. She had no control over her body, no agency at all whatsoever.

Without thinking, Claire slammed her fist into the mirror.

It shattered into a million tiny pieces, some of the reflective shards burying themselves in her knuckles, but she didn’t feel the pain. Not even a little bit.

That was when she started to scream.


	3. Deux

_Abandoned cabin in the woods_

_Appalachian Mountains, North Carolina 2013_

Even after three days of intense research, it still didn’t make any sense at all whatsoever.

The asylum in New Orleans was considered one of the best. There had never once been a suicide there. The security was top notch. No one could get weapons of any kind to harm themselves or others short of sowing them into their skin or learning sleight of hand, and yet, in the past six months, there had been four suicides. All different, all happening different places, all of them indescribable to anyone there.

Krissy Chambers glared at the computer screen, half hoping that if she looked closer at the words in the online article, some hidden meaning would pop up between them and everything would start to make sense. But, of course, nothing did. She huffed. She was going to have to go the asylum and see what was going on. It was nearly a thousand miles away, but if she didn’t, there was a possibility that more people would die and Dean Winchester had taught her that was something you didn’t allow to happen.

“Got anything on the asylum case that will keep you from going undercover as a nurse or is that your only option now?”

The voice came from behind her and when she turned, Krissy saw Ben Braeden. Tall, dark, and handsome Ben Braeden. Krissy wasn’t into him. She wasn’t really _in_ to anyone, if she was going to be completely honest, which was why she’d ended up skipping town after she’d found out that Aidan liked her. He’d tried to kiss her one night and she’d pushed him away, telling him she didn’t like him like that. He seemed heartbroken and Krissy thought it would be too weird for them to continue to live in the same house together, so she’d jumped ship and ended up finding Ben. They hunted together, their relationship strictly businesslike from the start. Jesse Turner joined them a little while later and now they had this cabin in the woods on the slopes of the Appalachian Mountains where they worked from. It was rare that they were all there at one time. One or more of them was usually off on a case. It was only if it was all three of them that they made sure to clear out the cabin or hide their belongings under loose floorboards. If a park ranger found them living here, they could get in quite a lot of trouble.

Letting out a long frustrated sigh, Krissy glanced back at the computer screen and shook her head. “I can’t seem to get anything that would give me any idea what this could be,” she told him. She sighed again, looking at him again. “I’m going to have to either give up and chalk up to a bunch of freak accidents or go down there and investigate before I figure out _what’s_ causing all of this and then decide how to kill it or stop it.”

Ben walked into the room sitting down on the edge of the bed. He drank of a can of Coke he had in his hand. They all had convincing fake IDs and sometimes bought alcohol for special occasions, but, for the most part, they all drank non-alcoholic drinks. It kept them more focused and awake and doing what they needed to do.

"You’re gonna leave me here all alone?” he joked, setting the Coke can down on the nightstand. He rested his elbows on his knees.

Krissy rolled her eyes. “It wouldn’t be the first time,” she said. “Besides, I have to figure out what this is. If it’s killed four people already, who’s to say it won’t kill five or more? I’ve got to stop this before things get any worse.”

He nodded, but he didn’t say anything else. He didn’t like being left alone. Unlike her and Jesse, he was much more social. He enjoyed going out and being around others. Sometimes he’d disappear for days, leading them all to believe he was on a hunt, but then he’d return, half-drunk and grinning and they’d know he’d stumbled into town, just to have some company that wasn’t their stony faces. At first, Krissy had been annoyed. They were supposed to be hunters. Professional hunters. Like Sam and Dean. _They_ didn’t do this kind of crap, so she tried to lock him in the cabin. She wouldn’t let him leave. Either she or Jesse were always watching him to make sure he didn’t abandon them again, but after several escape attempts, a few shouting matches, and her noticing Ben’s general depressive state, she decided putting him on lockdown wasn’t going to help anything. Besides, did it really matter all that much if he went out and had a few drinks with a few girls every now and then?

“Jesse will be home in a few days,” she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact rather than concerned and reassuring. Ben hated pity or worry from anyone. “You two can have a party while I’m gone. Just don’t trash the place. We’re not supposed to be here, remember?”

He rolled his eyes. “I remember.”

They were silent, both staring at the floor, unsure of what to say. Finally, Krissy said, “I’m going to pack some things. I’ll walk down to the bus station and see how close I can get to New Orleans before I need to start hitching rides.”

Ben nodded, saying, “I’ll help you.”

They moved quietly about the cabin, packing a couple changes of clothes, some water bottles, and a few plastic bags of nonperishables. Once Krissy had a duffle bag full of everything she could possibly need for a weeklong trip on the road, they hugged.

"I should be back before too long,” she said. “I’m guessing the longest this case will take me is a month. If it takes longer, I’ll call you. Keep your phone charged.”

“How?” Ben asked. “We don’t get any electricity up here.”

“There’s a lot of places down in town that do,” she reminded him, rolling her eyes. “Anyway, tell Jesse do to the same once he gets back, okay? I’ll leave messages in case you don’t get my call, but be sure to check your phone every day in case I need you or something.”

“You make it sound like this is going to be dangerous,” he said nervously, stuffing his hands into his pockets, his eyes flicking from her face to the ground.

“Every hunt is dangerous,” she told him. “I just want to be prepared.”

He sighed. “Just be careful, okay?”

She gave him a crooked smile. “I always am.”

They hugged again and she started down the steep incline to the town below where she’d wait at the bus stop for a bus that would take her to New Orleans. She waved before turning and not looking back. She didn’t like hunting as job, but, from what she could tell, no one really did. The pay was shit and the work was dangerous. Still. She’d never been to New Orleans before. Maybe this would be fun.

* * *

The jerk of the bus woke Krissy before the loud voice on the overhead speaker saying, “New Orleans” did. She shook her head slightly and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. She’d been lucky enough to find a bus that would take her straight to New Orleans instead of a city or state outside of it. She was glad. She hated hitchhiking.

Gathering up her belongings, while still yawning, she walked slowly behind a long line of people out of the bus. Some waited while the driver opened the storage unit beneath the bus and handed them suitcases and other things that couldn’t fit beneath their feet. Krissy had no such luggage and walked away from the bus into the building that made up the stop. She could hear rain pounding the awning near the bus and then the roof above her. Her fingers touched the wad of cash that was in her pocket. She wondered if she had enough money to rent a cab and a motel room until she could get to the asylum the next day.

She’d figured out before she left that she was going to have to pose as a nurse intern, since there were no motels anywhere near the asylum itself. In fact, there was _nothing_ near the asylum itself. Just a lot of swampland and, a short ways away, the ocean. She’d already made up fake paperwork, a fake ID, and bought herself some clothes that mirrored the clothes an asylum nurse might wear. If she was questioned on them, she could always say that her school or hospital where she was usually was different. If she was questioned on anything else, she could give them a fake business card for her “superior”, which would be Ben or Jesse depending on who was currently at the cabin (she’d packed both just in case). Nine out of ten times, this whole scheme would work. She didn’t really know what could go wrong. Unless this was one of the times they knew the numbers of the superior facilities and knew the names of the vast majority of the facilities in the US. She swallowed and tried not to think about that. There was severe jailtime in her future if this didn’t pan out the way she wanted it to.

There was a payphone in the bus station’s main building. She made a beeline for it, flipped open the heavy phone book to search for rental cab services and motels before she paid the 25 cents to use it and called a cab. The cab arrived within the hour and took her to a motel in the dead center of town. The cab driver spoke a lot, but, lucky for her, he didn’t seem to want her input on anything. He just wanted to talk. He kept telling her all the best places to go while she was in town. She smiled and nodded politely and planned to call a different cab service the next day, when she needed to be taken out to the asylum so she didn’t run the risk of getting this driver again.

Krissy spent most of the night sitting at the tiny table in the kitchenette, staring out the window at the blood-colored neon signs glowing through the rain that lashed the glass, blurring her view of the outside world. She wondered what she would find when she reached the asylum. She didn’t think whatever it was would present itself right away. Monsters rarely did. She looked down at her hands, dimly lit by the red light.

She wondered if it would kill her.

Suddenly Krissy laughed. Why was she thinking so morbidly? The odds of her getting killed by the monster were higher than she would admit to herself, yes, but they weren’t so high that she should start making funeral arrangements right now.

Still chuckling to herself, she pushed herself up and crawled into bed.

It wasn’t the sunlight streaming through her window to the dirty carpet floor that woke Krissy the next morning but the thunder clapping loudly overhead. It was so dark outside that she checked the cheap digital clock on the nightstand several times before she was finally convinced that it really was nine in the morning and not still two or three in the morning. She forced herself up, blinking blearily, and made herself some coffee with the cheap maker in the kitchenette. She poured as much creamer and sugar as she could into the brown liquid, but it was cheap motel coffee and nothing she did it seemed to make it any less bitter.

After choking the stuff down, she looked through the phonebook provided by the motel for another cab service. Once she found one, she called it and asked for them to send her a cab within the hour.

“Where do you want to go to?” the woman over the phone asked.

“The asylum,” Krissy said, already packing her things as she held the phone between her ear and shoulder. “Out near the marshes and the ocean.”

There was a short silence, but it was enough for Krissy to tell the woman was apprehensive about this. “Alright. We’ll send someone over within the hour.” She hung up quickly without saying goodbye and Krissy stared at the phone for a moment before putting it back on the receiver, wondering what that had all been about.

It was more than an hour and a half later that a cab finally arrived. The driver was silent and clearly nervous. He didn’t want to be here. Krissy could tell as he anxiously took her duffle bag and threw it into the trunk. She wanted to ask him what was going on, but she wasn’t sure he’d speak with her, so she got into the backseat of the cab and let him drive her out to the asylum.

Compared with her first driver, this one was completely silent. She watched the world outside go by in a rush. He seemed to be driving as fast as he could without endangering their lives and alerting the police. She watched the cityscape vanish quickly and then they entered the marshlands on the edge of the ocean. They were dark and covered in moss with willow trees dotting the land. She couldn’t tell where their branches ended and the mossy tops of the swamp water began.

It took nearly two hours to reach the asylum, even with the cab driver’s excelled speed. When she got there, he practically kicked her out of his cab and threw her duffle bag at her feet before turning around and speeding out of sight again. He didn’t even ask for his money.

Huffing indignantly, though glad the ride had ended up being free, Krissy shouldered her back and turned to look at the asylum.

It was an imposing façade and looked almost exactly how she’d pictured it.

It was made of gray stones and seemed to reach endlessly into the equally gray sky. There were few windows, but the ones she could see were barred. It was built like a cathedral and she would be willing to bet that it had been one in the past. A high chain link fence topped with barbed wire surrounded its backyard. The front entrance was open to the world. There was no fence or gate of any sort leading up to the door. To be honest, she wasn’t exactly shocked. The closest town was two hours or more away. It’d take a lot longer to get there on foot and, by the time they did, they’d be starving and weak and everyone within a fifty mile radius would know they’d escaped.

She tilted her head up to look at the very top of the asylum and a few drops of rain fell onto her face. She blinked the water out of her eyelashes. It wasn’t raining nearly as hard as it had been the night before. In fact, the rain was more of a light mist.

Letting out a measured breath, Krissy adjusted the strap of her duffle bag and stepped up to the door. There was a large circular brass knocker nailed onto the dark wood and she had to adjust her bag again to be able to lift up the ring and drop it several times. She was almost worried she was going to crack the door the knocker was so large and the door looked so old and weather worn, but nothing happened.

In fact, nothing happened for several long minutes. She was starting to wonder if the cab driver had brought her to the right place and if she could get service out here with her cell phone to call the cab company and ask for a ride back or if there were any other asylums in the area when the door creaked open.

A middle aged woman wearing traditional nurses’ scrubs with golden hair tied back in a severe bun stood in the doorway.

“Can I help you?” she asked, looking annoyed.

Forcing on her brightest, cheeriest smile, Krissy said, “Hi! I’m Amanda! I’m the new intern!” She spoke enthusiastically, leaving no room for debate. When the woman continued to look at her in an annoyed sort of way, she added, “Didn’t you get the call about me coming?”

“No,” the woman said curtly. “Even if we had, we wouldn’t have accepted you. We don’t host interns here. This is a professional asylum. We can’t have amateurs ruining things.”

Krissy forced out a laugh and said, “Oh! Well, it’s law that you have to host at least two interns a year and that’s okay you haven’t done any this year because now you have me!”

The woman pursed her lips, giving Krissy a tight-lipped smile. “I think not,” she said. “I’ll call you a cab to take you back to town.”

She started to close the door when Krissy said, “You can call my superior if you want confirmation of this law. If you don’t take me, I’ll be forced to report you and that could get this place shut down. I’m sure you wouldn’t want that. Where would your patients go?” She’d lost all pretense of the happy schoolgirl she’d been. She couldn’t let this woman turn her away.

The woman stared down at the card Krissy had dug out of her bag and was now holding out in front of her, but the woman shook her head. She let out a long sigh as though she were suffering simply from Krissy’s presence and said, “That won’t be necessary.” She stepped away from the door. “Please. Come in. Amanda, is it?”

Krissy stepped into the lobby of the asylum and smiled at the woman.

“Please wait here,” the woman said. “I’m going to get one of my younger nurses to show you around and then show you where you will be staying while you are with us.”

Krissy watched as the woman walked away and then looked around the lobby. It wasn’t anything special. The floor was white linoleum. The walls were whitewashed cinderblocks. In fact, nearly everything was white except for the cracks between the fake tiles on the floor, the rug in front of the door, and the bars that led from one part of the asylum to another. She was willing to bet her lifesavings that the rest of the asylum looked much the same as the lobby.

A few moments later, a tall black girl walked into the room. She had a friendly face and reminded Krissy of Josephine. She missed that girl sometimes. She’d been her best friend, but the pressure of living with Aidan had been too much. She’d left a number for Josephine when she left, but she’d never gotten any calls or texts from her. She suspected she was angry at her for leaving and, frankly, she didn’t blame her.

The girl in front of her was wearing blue scrubs like the woman who’d opened the door and a smile on her face. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail of dreadlocks and looked quite beautiful. In fact, everything about the girl was beautiful. Her skin was flawless. Her smile was pretty and her eyes looked like two pools of dark water.

“Hi,” the girl said, holding out her hand. “I’m Aurelia. I’ll show you around.”

The first floor was the intake area, Aurelia told her as they walked down the first hall. “Here is where we learn everything about the patients we have here. I think we know more about them than they do, to be honest,” she said. “We also have our infirmary on this floor. That’s actually what takes up most of this floor. Sometimes patients hurt themselves, which you really aren’t supposed to be able to do in an asylum, but accidents happen.” She shrugged.

They went up to the second floor and, just as Krissy thought, it was as sterile as the first floor. Almost more so. She couldn’t help noticing there were bars on the windows and though she knew this was a security measure, it made her swallow with apprehension.

“This is the low security floor,” Aurelia told her as they walked around the second level. “We also have the cafeteria on this level. Most of it is patient bedrooms, though.” She stopped in the middle of the hall and leaned against the wall. “There really isn’t any point in showing you the other floors. The third floor is medium security and the fourth floor is maximum security, but you’ll never go up there, so don’t worry about it. The third floor has some activity rooms and the third floor is just patient bedrooms and police officers and everyone trying to keep those patients under control. Luckily you can’t hear them yelling. Whoever refurbished this place decided it’d be smart if they made the walls and the floors between them soundproof, which, I think, was a good investment.”

Krissy privately agreed.

Aurelia smiled again and said, “I’ll show you where you’re going to sleep now.”

The room where Krissy would be staying was a small white box on the third level.

“You’ll be mostly helping out with the teenage patients on this level,” Aurelia told her, “so you’ll be sleeping here. I’ll actually be your roommate.” She gestured to the other side of the tiny room that was already set up. “I know there isn’t much room in here, but Dr. Lane told me you wouldn’t be here long. You’re just interning for a month or so, so I guess it won’t be too big of a deal for us to share a room for too long.”

Krissy nodded and Aurelia flashed her bright smile again.

“When you’re done getting set up, you can change into that set of scrubs,” she said, pointing to a folded bunch of clothes Krissy hadn’t noticed before at the end of the small bed, “and come have dinner in the cafeteria. Then you can go to bed. You can start helping out and whatnot tomorrow.”

Once the other girl had left, Krissy dropped her duffle bag on the ground. It landed with a dull thud and she sat down heavily on the edge of the bed.

Keeping up a cheerful disposition was going to be easy around Aurelia, but the same could not be said for the woman – Dr. Lane – she’d met when she first arrived. Hell, it wouldn’t be easy anyway. She wasn’t used to being this happy all the time, but it was something hunters did. They had to fake personalities, especially when they were far too young to even look like an FBI agent.

She pulled off her own clothes and dressed quickly in the scrubs.

It was going to be a long couple of weeks.


	4. Trois

_Bethrock Asylum for Troubled Youth_

_Second floor, Cafeteria_

_Batman Island, New Orleans 2013_

More than once when she’d been traversing the country what felt like a lifetime ago, hunting anything and everything she could find, Claire’d had bad food. There were greasy diners all over the United States, especially in the southeastern U.S., which was where her hunts had been concentrated. She’d gotten used to that kind of food. In fact, she’d come to enjoy it. However, she didn’t long for it. She wished she had enough money to eat someplace nice every once in a while, but hunting brought no income and hustling pool only brought in enough for motel rooms and crappy food in every town she visited.

That was until she’d been locked up in here.

Now Claire would’ve given everything she owned – which, admittedly, wasn’t much – to have some of that horrible diner food now. The asylum food was ten times as bad and, to be honest, she wasn’t entirely sure you could even call it food. Nothing this dry, this greasy, this tasteless could be considered nutritious. It certainly wasn’t delicious. The only reason Claire choked it down at all was so the doctor’s didn’t think she had an eating disorder.

That night when she was marched down to the cafeteria with the other patients in her hallway, she felt something was different. The food was still terrible and everything seemed quite the same, but she was certain something was different and it wasn’t until the girl in the room next to her said, “Who do you think _that_ is?” that she figured it out.

There was someone new in the asylum.

She turned towards the table the girl had been pointing to with her fork, but instead of a new patient, she saw a new nurse.

This nurse was considerably younger than the others. She couldn’t have been much older than Claire. She had dark brown hair tied back in a ponytail, ivory skin, and nails with chipping blue paint on them. When she turned her head, Claire could see she had a beauty mark beneath her eye.

Claire blinked.

This girl was beautiful.

And, she knew, beyond a doubt, though she couldn’t explain how or why, that this girl was a hunter in disguise.

This made Claire swallow hard.

It was painfully clear to her what this hunter was doing here. It had been nearly two weeks since her last suicide attempt and the last death in the asylum, but it didn’t change the fact that they’d happened and were completely unexplained. Anyone who wasn’t a hunter was probably looking at the paper and thinking it was just a string of strange accidents or a lack of asylum security, but the hunters knew better and now one of them had come to the asylum, presumably to find out who was killing the patients and then kill them.

Claire turned back to her food.

She couldn’t decide if she was nervous or relieved.

On the one hand, it would be nice to finally die, but on the other someone else would be killing her and there was no guarantee this girl would be nice about it.

She picked up her fork again and pushed the food around on her plate.

Then again, if the girl killed her, once and for all, and no one else died, what was she complaining about? Beggars couldn’t be choosers and Claire had certainly become a beggar. Maybe her punishment for killing those other patients would be a slow death. She could live with that, she thought.

* * *

If Krissy thought her job as an asylum intern was going to be simple and allow her time to search for whatever monster it was that was murdering the patients, she was sorely mistaken.

Aurelia woke her up at 7:00 a.m. sharp the morning after her arrival and immediately began telling her what to do.

“While the patients are at breakfast, we have to clean their rooms,” she said. “It’s not really hard. All we have to do is sweep the floor, make the bed, and clean the windows. It’ll only take us about an hour to do both floors.”

She wasn’t bossy, but Krissy was always in a sour mood in the mornings and felt like the other girl was purposefully bossing her around and rushing her. In reality, she was only trying to get her job done, but Krissy had to bite the inside of her cheek as they dashed around the second and third floors trying to get everything clean in the correct amount of time to keep herself from yelling at the other girl.

Once they were done with this around 8:15, Aurelia said, “Okay, now I teach an art class on the third floor, so you can come sit with me with that. I don’t really think it’d be a good idea to have you wander around and there really isn’t anything else for you to do until noon anyway.”

“Your art class lasts three and a half hours?” Krissy asked incredulously.

“Well, the patients like to take their time,” Aurelia replied as they opened the door to the art room. “The low security patients can come and go as they please and so can the medium security patients, but they need an escort. I don’t teach the maximum security patients. They keep to their floor for the most part. They have their own cafeteria up there and everything.”

Krissy didn’t say anything. She only wondered how she was ever going to get away to start searching the place for EMF or traces of anything else.

The art class was set to start at 8:30, but patients didn’t start to trickle in until closer to 9:00, so Krissy and Aurelia had plenty of time to set up the activity Aurelia was planning to do that day, though they were fifteen minutes late finishing cleaning the patients’ rooms. They set up easels and canvases around the room. There were only about twenty of them, but Aurelia assured Krissy that only about that many patients would be in the room at one time.

“They come in shifts sort of,” she said as they leaned up against the table at the front of the room, waiting for their first students to come in.

Aurelia was right.

The first group of patients was mostly the younger children who were there after having been sexually or physically abused or had done something that could be considered criminal, but as they were children and could not go to prison, were serving a sentence in this place instead. The second group of patients were the young adults, patients between the ages of 18 and 21. Most of these patients were here for mental illnesses that could not be maintained by their parents or criminal charges that were on the verge of dangerous, but instead of spending time in jail, they were sent to the asylum instead.

It was with this group that Krissy saw her.

She was one of the first ones to walk in and she had a chaperone. Krissy guessed that must mean she belonged on the third floor rather than the second floor. She had long blonde hair that just barely brushed the tops of her thighs. Her eyes were a deep brown and had a fathomless broken look to them when she turned to look at Krissy as she sat down in front of one of the easels towards to the far side of the room near the front. She wore the same clothes everyone else wore – gray sweats – and Krissy had a feeling if she were wearing the clothes she usually wore, she would have stood out even more. There was something different about her, something Krissy couldn’t quite place her finger on, but she wanted to know what it was.

Then Krissy remembered the reason she was there and turned to Aurelia, saying as subtly as she could, “What’s that girl’s name? What’s she in here for?”

Aurelia glanced at the blonde girl who had started to paint something. She had taken the blue, navy, indigo, and silver paint bottles as well as a bag full of tiny sparkling stars that looked like they were used for confetti at parties.

“I’m not really supposed to tell you about the other patients, but the thing is, no one knows what Claire’s problem is. She was brought here because she ran away from home and assaulted a police officer when they brought her in for questioning after her mother put out an Amber alert, but no one knows why she ran away or why she didn’t want to go back home. I think all of the police and most of the staff here think her mother was abusive, but I don’t think so. I think it’s something else.”

“Have you ever tried asking her?” Krissy asked.

“That’s the thing,” Aurelia replied. “She doesn’t talk. She doesn’t even respond to anything anyone says. Ever.”

Krissy watched the girl called Claire paint. She surreptitiously walked around the room, pretending to be checking on how everyone was doing, but really she was just interested in what Claire was painting. When she reached her, she saw her canvas had been covered in all three paints that she had in her lap. They were all still open and spilling onto her clothes, but she didn’t seem to care. Her painting looked like the sky early in the morning, just as it was staring to get light, right before it turned pink and right after it was black. Rather abruptly, she set down her paintbrush, capped all of the paint bottles, and grabbed the little bag of silver stars. She pulled the canvas off the easel, took a handful of the stars out of the bag, and sprinkled them around the canvas. Now it really looked like the early morning sky, though, Krissy had a strange feeling that _wasn’t_ what it was.

Claire looked up at Krissy in the middle of digging back in the bag for more stars. Krissy stepped back out of surprise. There was a strange look on Claire’s face, both accusing and pleading as though she were begging her to understand something, but no matter how hard Krissy looked at her, looked into those bottomless eyes, she couldn’t figure out what it was this girl in front of her wanted.

She was almost relieved when Claire finally left. She left her canvas where it was and Krissy was about to run after her to tell her, when Aurelia said, “She always leaves her canvases. I keep them all. They’re always so beautiful.”

Once the art class was over, close to noon, Aurelia led Krissy outside. “The patients are allowed out on the grounds from now until dinner if they want,” she said. “All of them, except the maximum security patients. I usually go chaperone with the other nurses, so you can come with me today. It’s also just nice to get out. It gets kind of cramped in the asylum.”

They stayed outside, talking with the other nurses – none of whom were anywhere near as fun or kind as Aurelia was – until dinnertime and then called the patients back inside. Krissy noticed that Claire was among the patients that had been outside, but it was weird, she hadn’t seen her when they’d first come outside. Could she possibly have gone somewhere the nurses couldn’t see? That wasn’t allowed, but if Krissy was right and Claire _was_ whatever was murdering the other patients, it would make sense for her to go off radar at times.

Now more than ever, Krissy wanted to get away from Aurelia and search the asylum, run EMF by Claire’s room if she could find it, figure out what was going on here. Clearly something was or those four patients wouldn’t have died. And what had Claire been trying to tell her during the art class? She was sure she’d been trying to tell her _some_ thing, but what that something was, she still had no idea. The painting didn’t mean anything to her.

It was these questions and more that kept Krissy awake long after everyone else had gone to bed. She’d thought about combing the place after Aurelia fell asleep, but she figured it wouldn’t be a good idea to go roaming about the asylum on her first day there. Dr. Lane, the head doctor of the asylum, was already wary about her presence and if she got caught wandering around after she was supposed to be in bed the day after she got there, she didn’t think she’d be able to come up with an excuse good enough for the old woman. No, she’d have to wait. Maybe a week, maybe only a couple of days, but either way she wasn’t going to be able to do much for a little while.

 _More people could die in that time,_ a voice reminded her. _If you don’t start doing your job right away, more people could die and that would be your fault for not even trying to figure out what’s killing them._

 _Maybe so,_ she replied. _But I’m going to be of even less help if I have to sneak into the asylum a second time. It won’t be as easy then. I’m more help inside doing nothing and gaining the trust of others than stuck outside doing something and only able to work if no one can see me._

Pulling the blankets higher up around her, Krissy rolled over and tried to force herself to sleep.

* * *

As the days went on, life as an intern at the asylum became easier. Krissy got used to the routine rather quickly and soon found herself doing things automatically and much more efficiently than she had before. In fact, it got to the point where Krissy had almost fooled herself into thinking this was actually her job, especially considering that nothing strange or supernatural had happened since she’d arrived.

Well, almost nothing.

Claire’s paintings still continued to have the same celestial theme, she continued giving her those piercing stares each time she finished one, and she continued to disappear whenever she was allowed outside.

One day near the end of the first week, Krissy decided she would follow her when she went to chaperone outside with Aurelia, but she’d barely moved when one of the other nurses nearby said, “It’s just a waste of time.”

Krissy turned to look at her. “What?”

“Following her,” the nurse said, nodding in Claire’s direction. She was lingering by a tree, staring up into the branches. “She’ll disappear on you no matter what you do. All of us have tried keeping her in view, but she’s good at evading everyone. You’re not going to be able to find out where she’s going unless you’re connected at the hip.”

Krissy leaned back against the brick wall of the asylum, more curious than ever.

It wasn’t until she’d been there a week and a half that she remembered she still hadn’t scanned the hospital for EMF. She’d been too exhausted from work nearly every night to even think of waiting for the rest of the hospital to fall asleep to get back up again and roam the darkened halls. But, thinking about it now, she felt wide awake.

Checking to make sure Aurelia was truly asleep, Krissy pushed herself up and pulled her EMF meter out of her duffle bag before creeping out of the room. She switched it on, half expecting it immediately to go haywire after having been cooped up in the asylum for eleven days, but it did quite the opposite. It was almost completely silent.

Deciding she might as well do this properly, Krissy went down to the first floor, opening the gates along the way by picking the locks. If she’d stolen Aurelia’s keycard and used that, they would make a loud buzzing sound before opening and, though the entire place was supposed to be soundproof, she wouldn’t put it past Dr. Lane to sleep with her door open. She hadn’t spoken with the woman since arriving, but every time she looked at her, it was with either suspicion or utter disgust. Krissy was certain she’d love an excuse to throw her out and she was going to do her best to _not_ give her one.

The first floor was so clean it was eerie. The same went for the second floor, but when Krissy opened the gate to the third floor and looked down the hall, she jumped.

The last door at the end of the hall was ajar and a girl was standing in the doorway.

A girl with hair so pale it shone silver in the moonlight.

It was as though Claire knew what she was going to do and had been waiting for her.

Krissy didn’t bother with her EMF meter. She was sure she wasn’t going to get any readings on this floor either. She was becoming more and more certain with every step she took towards the room at the end of the hall that it really was Claire who had been committing the murders in the asylum and, yet, at the same time, she was certain she hadn’t meant to. She didn’t know how she knew this. She had no proof at all whatsoever, but it came to her with sudden clarity and she wouldn’t have been able to explain it even if someone had been pressing a gun to her forehead.

She slowed when she was within two yards of the door. Claire looked like a ghost in the gray light. She said nothing as Krissy approached. She only turned and walked back into her room. Krissy followed her, closing the door almost all of the way behind her. She placed her EMF meter in the crack to keep it from locking her in. When she turned back to the small sparse room, she saw Claire was sitting on the bed at the far end of the room, her legs pulled up against her chest, her chin resting on her knees. Krissy walked towards her slowly and carefully as though she were a wounded animal that could hurt her if she weren’t careful. She grabbed the chair from her desk and set it down in front of the bed.

“Do you know what I am?” she asked in a whisper, sitting in the chair.

Claire nodded once.

“Have you been killing the patients in the hospital?”

Another nod.

“Have you been doing it on purpose?”

 This time she shook her head.

“I didn’t think so,” Krissy said more to herself than Claire. She looked back up at her. “You’re here by mistake, aren’t you?” Nod. “Do you want me to get you out of here?” Another nod. “Okay, I will, but you’re going to have to give me a reason and a couple of days.”

Claire pulled a small notebook out from under her pillow along with a pen. She tore a sheet out of the notebook, scribbled something down on it and handed it to Krissy who looked at what was written there.

 

            _Room 102. Cabinet 2. File 1414._

 

Krissy didn’t have to ask what this was. It was where her personal file was. She looked up at Claire again. “Do you want me to read it?”

Nod.

Krissy nodded as well. “I’m going to go now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Claire didn’t nod this time. She gave her another intense look as though there were something else she wanted to tell her, but she couldn’t force herself to speak the words. Krissy wanted to shake her and yell, “Just tell me! Open your mouth! Use your tongue!” But she had a feeling that not speaking for two years had turned her tongue to lead and it wouldn’t be as easy as all of that.

Not saying another word, Krissy turned on her heel and left the room.

It looked like she was going to have another adventure tomorrow night.

* * *

Trying to act as though nothing had happened and being patient until she could sneak out again, had Krissy antsy all through the next day.

She got up early with Aurelia and had to resist the urge to tell her what she’d learned the night before. The girl she shared a room with had become her friend. The only hard part – as it was with any relationship outside of the supernatural world – was being unable to discuss any part of her job with her. Not that she really wanted to. Doing so would be introducing Aurelia to the hunting world and the hunting life wasn’t a life anyone really wanted or should get into. She didn’t want Aurelia to become a hunter. She wanted her to continue to help troubled young adults at this asylum in New Orleans long after she’d left, so, though she wanted to talk about what was going on with _someone_ , she kept her mouth shut.

Krissy would have thought that Claire’s desperate insistence that she was missing something would’ve died down a bit after their midnight conversation, but she still seemed to be trying to tell her something. Krissy tried hard to understand what her paintings might mean. Aurelia had showed all of her old ones to her and they all were similar. They all looked like the sky and covered in those silver stars.

 _What comes from the sky?_ She asked herself as she stood idly next to Aurelia on the grounds after the art class, leaning against the brick wall of the asylum. The only thing she could think of was angels, but this girl wasn’t an angel. She was sure of that. Angels acted differently from humans and were, therefore, easy to spot. This girl didn’t act like angel. She acted like a girl who was scared and worried and just wanted to leave this place and Krissy was becoming more and more certain that was all she was.

Still, she wanted to read her file. She wanted to make sure there wasn’t a good reason she was locked up in this asylum. She obviously couldn’t let her free if she’d killed someone, but she was on the medium security floor. She couldn’t have done anything _that_ bad. If she _had_ killed one, she would be on the maximum security floor and Krissy never would have even seen her to begin with.

Finally, Krissy was lying down to sleep with Aurelia and the minute she heard the other girl’s snores emitting from the bed next to her, she pushed herself up and left the room. She hurried down the stairs to the first floor and, using the paper Claire had given her the night before, she found the room full of patient files. She carefully unlocked the door and relocked it behind her. She placed the keys on a table near the door, hidden behind some books and immediately began looking for the cabinet and file that Claire had also written down.

It didn’t take long. Claire’s paper helped and within minutes Krissy was pulling her file out of the correct cabinet.

It was dark in the room and Krissy had to stand by the window to read through it. The most recent entries were boring, simply talking about how Claire still refused to communicate with any of the staff of the asylum and continued to disappear during the time she was let outside. There was a side note saying she should probably not be allowed outside anymore.

This went on for several pages, until finally she reached the first entry.

 

            _Claire Novak_

_Age: 14_

_Appearance: 5’5” ; blonde hair ; gray eyes_

_Ethnicity: Caucasian_

_Admitted: November 2011_

_Released: –_

_Reason for Admittance: Runaway ; attacked police officer_

_Suggestion for Treatment: Cannot be administered until patient speaks_

_History: Depression and subdued personality since age 12 after father’s disappearance_

There wasn’t anything else on the first page. Just this quick summary and once Krissy had finished reading it, she closed the folder and put it back.

There wasn’t anything in the folder she didn’t already know. Aurelia had told her why Claire was there the first day she arrived. Even the head doctor here didn’t know what was wrong with her. How could she figure it out from some stupid file they were keeping?

She felt disappointed. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to find, but it had definitely something more than this. Either way, her mind was made up. Tomorrow night, she and Claire would leave this asylum, which meant she was going to have to call Ben or Jesse and see which one of them could come and pick them up. There was no way they were going to get away from the asylum before the nurses noticed they were missing without help.

Deciding there was no time like the present, Krissy looked around the room for a phone. There was one hanging against the wall near the door. She tiptoed over to it and quickly dialed Jesse’s cell.

It rang several times before finally he picked up.

“Who is this?” he asked, sounding frustrated and furious. She must have woken him up. “How did you get this number?”

“It’s me,” Krissy hissed in reply. “Look, I need you to be a block away from here tomorrow to pick me up, okay? You have to be here at midnight. No later.” She gave him the asylum’s address.

There was a rustling of bedsheets as Jesse pushed himself up out of bed and then a scribbling as he wrote down the address. “Okay,” he mumbled. “I’ll be there. See you then.”

He hung up without saying goodbye.

Krissy scurried back up to bed then.

Once she was safely tucked in between her sheets once more, she thought about what she’d just done, what had just been decided. At this time tomorrow, she would be hurrying down the dirt road towards the car Jesse would have parked a block away. She doubted anyone would question a car just sitting on the side of the dusty road. This happened a lot in Louisiana. People liked getting out at random places to go fishing. She only hoped that would be the assumption if anyone decided to go out of the asylum and look down the road tomorrow. If not, she and Claire were going to have a much harder time leaving.

Her thoughts swirled, going over everything that could go wrong and how they’d get around it. A lot of the scenarios involved her hurting whoever got in their way and that wasn’t something she wanted to resort to, but she would if she had to.

Finally near dawn, her thoughts began to slow down and her eyelids drooped. They fluttered shut just as the first rays of the new day began to shine through the curtains into their room. She knew she wouldn’t be asleep for very long, but that was alright. She could sleep when they got back to the cabin tomorrow night.

* * *

Krissy hovered through the next day, watching Claire, trying to get a moment alone with her to tell her they’d be leaving tonight, but no moment ever presented itself. She thought about getting up from her table at dinner to go speak with Claire, but realized just in time that would seem weird and suspicious, so she contented herself in thinking Claire would be exactly where she needed her to be tonight.

It seemed to take Aurelia a thousand years to fall asleep that night. Krissy was certain Aurelia was staying up on purpose and that she was going to miss her midnight deadline with Jesse. It wasn’t that she didn’t think Jesse wouldn’t wait for her all night if he had to, she just wanted to get out of here before morning and with the way Aurelia was rolling around in bed, she was starting to think that was never going to happen.

However, at long last, around eleven-thirty, Aurelia’s snores finally filled the room and Krissy pushed herself up out of bed. She’d put on her clothes under her pajamas and quickly stripped out of her sleeping clothes, stuffing them into her duffle bag before slinging it back over her shoulder. She gave one last glance at Aurelia. She wanted to leave her a note, let her know she really cared about her and that she was her friend, but she knew that was a bad idea. Maybe Aurelia would find a clue in the note telling where she was going and she couldn’t risk that. Sometimes friendships made on the job just had to be dropped for the greater good of both parties involved.

Steeling herself, Krissy wrenched open the door and hurried to the third floor.

Unlike the first time Krissy had spoken with Claire, she wasn’t standing with her door open waiting for her, but she really hadn’t expected her to be. She hadn’t told her they were leaving. She wasn’t expecting her this time.

She unlocked the door to Claire’s room and crept inside. She saw a tiny form curled into a ball sleeping on the bed at the far end of the room. She tiptoed across the linoleum and gently shook her awake, pressing her hand over her mouth to keep her from crying out and waking anyone they wanted to stay asleep. However, it seemed this was unneeded. Claire opened her eyes calmly and stared up at Krissy in wonder and amazement.

"We’re leaving,” she told her. “Get whatever you want and then let’s go.”

Claire didn’t reply. She simply pushed herself up out of bed, grabbed the stack of books sitting on the desk next to the lone window in her room and then headed towards the door. Krissy followed her.

Few things in Krissy Chamber’s life had ever been easy and she hadn’t expected this to be one of them, but it was. No one was awake. The asylum was silent as they left it.

Claire seemed to be expecting something to happen, too, because she kept looking around frantically, clutching the books to her chest and keeping close to Krissy. Krissy didn’t blame her for her anxiety. She would’ve been anxious as well if she were finally leaving a place she’d been locked up in the same place for two years.

The both of them seemed to be holding their breath and when they finally got out of the asylum and into the cool night air, they let it out. They both gave the asylum only one backwards glance before running as fast as their legs would carry them down the dirt road. Krissy pulled her flashlight out of her duffle bag as they were running and shined it ahead of them, searching the road for Jesse’s car. For several yards, she saw absolutely nothing and she began to panic. What if Jesse hadn’t come? What if he hadn’t managed to get away? What if she and Claire were on their own? The closest town was several miles by foot and they would most likely be caught before they got anywhere near it, but then the car materialized out of the darkness and Krissy let out a heavy breath of relief.

The back doors of the car were unlocked and Krissy wrenched open one while Claire pulled open the other. They both slumped in the seats, slammed the doors shut behind them and got themselves buckled as Jesse checked over his shoulder only once to make sure it was Krissy before he took off.

“I didn’t think you’d come at first,” Krissy said, laughing breathlessly.

“Who’s she?” he asked, instead of replying. He gestured to Claire with his chin.

“She needed help,” Krissy replied instantly. “She needed to get out of there. She didn’t belong in there. I read her file.”

“Did you take care of what was killing the patients when you weren’t making friends?” he asked, sounding as angry as he had the night before over the phone.

Krissy glared at him. “Yes, I did.”

"What was it?”

“A wraith,” she said without pause. She didn’t know why she was lying to him, but now didn’t seem to be the right time to tell Jesse that it was really the girl sitting next to her that had killed those patients, even if it was accidental.

It was silent in the car after that. Krissy glanced at Claire every now and then who was pressing herself as close to the window as she possibly could without opening it and leaning out of it. She was looking up at the stars. Krissy wondered how long it had been since she’d seen them properly.

She was just settling in the car, getting ready to try to sleep until Jesse told her it was her turn to drive when a soft voice sounded to her right.

“My veins were filled with stardust once.”

Krissy sat up straight whirled around.

She hadn’t turned from the window, but Krissy knew she’d heard the words.

Claire Novak had spoken for the first time.


	5. Quatre

_Abandoned cabin in the woods_

_Appalachian Mountains, North Carolina 2013_

Any thought of sleep had vanished the moment Claire spoke.

Throughout the rest of the drive back to the cabin, Krissy tried to get her to say more, but she wouldn’t. Those were the first and last words she spoke and, try as she might, Krissy couldn’t figure out what they meant. She was certain they had something to do with her drawings and then, as they were passing from South Carolina into North Carolina, it hit her.

She’d suspected before that her paintings were related to the sky and what came from the sky had she decided? Angels. From what Krissy had heard from Dean in the couple times she’d met him, angels needed vessels to have substance on earth. They couldn’t be here in their true forms. And what had Claire said to that police officer before they’d knocked her out? She’d read it on the tiny sticky note that had been placed in her file.

“ _I’ll tell you everything you need to know right now. My name is Claire Novak. I’m from Pontiac, Illinois. My father was murdered by an angel four years ago. I’m collecting halos._ Don’t _interfere.”_

Collecting halos.

Veins filled with stardust.

Father murdered by an angel.

Claire was killing angels because her father had been possessed by one, his consciousness had been taken from him. And Claire…Claire had been possessed by an angel as well. Maybe the same angel. She was trying to prevent what had happened to her father from happening to others.

Krissy stared at the girl sitting next to her. Claire had fallen asleep, her face pressed against the glass of the window, just as they entered Mississippi. She wondered how many angels she’d already killed. She wondered how many more were on her list. She wondered how many she would never get to because they were in Heaven. She wondered if she would ever be allowed _in_ to Heaven because she’d murdered so many. She wondered if she’d gotten the angel who had destroyed her father’s consciousness. She wondered if that angel was the one who was a friend of Dean and Sam’s.

The girl who was an enigma wasn’t being revealed, she was becoming even more of a mystery than she had been before.

The drive back to North Carolina took considerably shorter than the drive there. Jesse didn’t stop except to fill up the car a couple times. He didn’t speak and neither did Claire, so Krissy stayed silent as well. She knew she was going to have to explain the other girl’s presence to him and Ben once they got back to cabin, but she was still trying to figure out how to do that without making them think she should’ve driven a knife through her heart. How could she explain to them that she felt, with absolute certainty, that this girl wasn’t dangerous without them rolling their eyes at her and telling her she was crazy?

She was staring to think there wasn’t one.

It was early afternoon the next day by the time the car stopped in a secluded patch of trees next to the cabin. Krissy had fallen asleep in the early hours of the morning and had only woken up because the car stopped moving.

“We’re here,” Jesse said curtly. He opened the door and stepped out. “You better have a really good story to tell me why you brought her with us.”

Krissy swallowed. She stretched and got out as well. Claire was still fast asleep, so she ended up carrying her inside. She laid her down on her own bed and shut the blinds. She dumped her duffle bag on the armchair before she left her room and went into the living room where Ben and Jesse were waiting for her, their arms crossed, scowls on their faces.

“Well?” Jesse said immediately. “Why is she here?”

“You have to trust me on this,” Krissy began. “Before I say anything else. Okay?”

Neither of them nodded or shook their heads. She couldn’t say she blamed them.

“Fine,” she sighed. “I found her in the asylum. She’s not a psychopath. In fact, the only reason she was there was because she ran away from home, assaulted a cop, and refused to talk to the asylum staff. She’s a hunter. She’s like us. She was hunting angels. That’s why she ran away from home. I think –” Krissy glanced over her shoulder as she said this. “I think she was a vessel for one of them. Her father’s consciousness was stolen by one of them. They might be the same angel or two different ones. I’m not entirely sure. The first time she spoke to me at all was when Jesse was driving us back here.”

“What about what was killing the patients?” Ben asked, his tone matching Jesse’s. “Did you get whatever was doing that?”

Krissy swallowed. “She was,” she said. The boys’ eyes widened.

“ _What_?” Ben said incredulously. “And you let her live?!”

“She wasn’t doing it on purpose,” Krissy said, her own eyes narrowing. “I don’t think _she_ even knows how she was doing it. _I_ don’t know how she was doing it, but I have an idea.”

“What is then?” Jesse retorted.

Krissy bit her lip. “I think she was trying to kill herself. I don’t know why. Maybe she thought she’d never get out of the asylum and she thought the only way she was ever going to be free again was to take her own life. I’m not sure why or how she survived each suicide attempt and I certainly don’t know why or how the other patients died, but I don’t think she killed any of them with malicious intent or _any_ intent _at all_. It was an accident.”

“How do you know that?” Jesse asked, glaring.

“She told me,” Krissy replied.

“And you believe her?”

“Yeah,” said Krissy, glaring right back. “I do.”

There was a tense silence in which the three of them scowled at one another. Finally, Jesse sighed and turned away saying, “Fine, she can stay.”

“I wasn’t really asking for your permission,” Krissy mumbled, turning away as well.

She was tired, but her bed was being taken, so she dug in her duffle bag, spread out the sleeping bag she’d brought on the floor and crawled inside. She hoped when she woke up everything would have sorted itself out, but she knew from experience it was going to take a few days for Jesse to get over things not having gone his way.

* * *

Krissy spend the next few days at the bedside of Claire Novak, who hadn’t woken up since she was brought back to the cabin.

Jesse often came in, saying he was checking on Krissy, but he spent most of his time watching Claire sleep with a worried look on his face. Even though they didn’t approve of her being there, neither he nor Ben wanted anything bad to happen to Claire and it was they who suggested that, when she still hadn’t woken up after two days, they take her to the hospital.

“I don’t think there’s anything they can do for her there,” Krissy said honestly, looking at the pale girl in the bed. “She’ll wake up when she’s ready. I don’t think she’s sick.”

Jesse pressed his lips into a thin line, but didn’t argue.

Krissy fell asleep in the armchair next to Claire’s bed that night, the book she’d been reading dangling from her fingertips. Her dreams were strange, filled of skies filled with stardust and girls that seemed to be made of them. She tried to talk to the stardust girls, but each of their glittering faces just melded into the background before she could reach them.

Someone was shaking her awake.

Krissy started and opened her eyes blearily.

Claire was leaning over from the bed, her eyes wide, her hand on her shoulder. She stopped shaking her and pulled back the minute she saw her eyes open. She pulled her legs up against her chest again and looked at her intently. It was the same look she’d given her in the asylum, the look as though she wanted to tell her something, but was hoping she’d just figure it out instead.

“What do you want?” Krissy asked impatiently. “Can’t you just tell me?”

Claire said nothing. She only continued staring at her.

“Do you want something to eat?” Krissy asked, running a hand through her hair. “Do you have to go to the bathroom?”

Claire perked up a little at both suggestions.

“Okay,” Krissy said, pushing herself to her feet. “Bathroom then food.”

She led Claire down the hall to the bathroom and told her where the kitchen was before heading there to make breakfast. She ran a tired hand over her face and noticed grimly that the sun was barely up over the horizon.

“Who does she think she is?” she mumbled, tugging open the refrigerator. “Waking me up at this hour when I’ve slept on the fucking floor for two days so she could sleep comfortably and then not even telling me what she wants without playing twenty questions.”

She grabbed the carton of eggs and pulled a skillet out of the cupboard and turned on the stove. She put the skillet on one of the burners. She grabbed the butter and put it in the skillet, moving it around with a spoon, watching it melt.

“I mean, she’s obviously been through some nasty shit and that’s why she’s not talking, but she’s going to have to get over that. Not everyone is going to be as patient with her as I am and even I’m getting sick of it. It’s okay in the asylum where everyone’s willing to let you not speak or communicate or do anything, but we’re not there anymore we’re –”

A tap on her shoulder made her jump and turn around.

Claire stood there holding out two eggs.

Krissy blushed bright red, wondering how long she’d been there and how much she’d heard her say. She was willing to bet most if not all of it.

“Thanks,” she muttered, taking the eggs from the girl and cracking them into the skillet, though she didn’t bother asking how she liked her eggs done. She didn’t think she’d get an answer.

By the time the eggs were finished, Ben and Jesse were up, so Krissy made two more before putting some bacon in the microwave to heat up. Once all the food was done, she set it down in front of the boys and Claire who were sitting at the table. Jesse and Ben were talking about a new videogame system that had come out they wanted to save up for and Claire was staring out the large ceiling to floor windows at the sun still making its way up into the sky.

“Here’s breakfast,” Krissy said loudly to the table at large. “Not that either of you deserve it since you didn’t help me with it.” She sat down at the fourth seat next to Claire and was about to dig into her food when she saw Claire out of the corner of her eye, eating the food as fast as she possibly could.

“Slow down,” Jesse said, reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder. “You’ll make yourself sick.”

But Claire didn’t seem to have heard him. Before any of them had even taken one bite, Claire had finished her entire plate and was heading back into the kitchen. She put a couple of slices of toast into the toaster. She stood, leaning up against the counter, her arms crossed over her chest, watching the toaster. Her long blonde hair hid her face from view.

“Does she speak?” Ben asked as Claire plucked her toast from the toaster and began to smother it in so much butter Krissy wasn’t sure if there was more of that than bread.

“No,” she said in response to Ben’s question. “She’s only ever spoken once and that was on the ride back here from the asylum. I don’t know why she doesn’t talk.”

Ben looked over at Claire, who was now putting two more pieces of toast into the toaster, while eating one of the ones that she’d just covered in butter. “Something really bad must’ve happened to her for her to feel like she can’t talk.”

* * *

The next several days went much the same way as the first.

Claire and Krissy would get up early and make breakfast for themselves and everybody else. Then, while Ben and Jesse went to sift through online articles for something that might prove to be a hunt, they sat in the living room. Claire seemed very interested in the large shelf of books that Krissy had accumulated while living in the cabin. She read very fast, too. Within a week, she’d gotten through not only the small armful of books she’d brought with herself from the asylum but two of four shelves of books in the bookcase as well. Krissy would have said she was surprised with the other girl’s readying abilities, but she wasn’t really. Claire was very smart and clearly acted it.

“We have to watch her,” Jesse told Krissy one night after Claire had gone to sleep. “At least for a few weeks. She could just be biding her time before killing us all.”

Krissy had to physically stop herself from rolling her eyes. “You really think she’s going to do that? She barely speaks. How’s she going to kill us? Monsters like letting you know what they’re going to do. They like you trying to figure it out.”

He scowled. “Maybe she’s different.”

“You’re supposed to be the anti-Christ, remember?” she retorted. “Honestly, it’d make more sense for me to want to constantly be watching you than her.”

“She killed four people without touching them!” h exclaimed.

“On accident! How many times do I have to say that?” she shot back, but that was the end of the argument and, though she didn’t want to do it, Krissy agreed to watch Claire for at least two to three weeks before letting her out of the cabin or allowing her to do anything on her own. A part of her suspected that Claire would leave them when she was ready and that same part of her found she really didn’t want her to.

However, though Claire seemed to be enjoying herself, Krissy was beginning to feel more than a little stir crazy towards the end of that first week. Claire didn’t seem to mind being confined to the indoors, and though Krissy suspected this was because she’d had to get used to it, having spent two years at the asylum, that didn’t make her own imprisonment any easier. Krissy hadn’t felt this way in the asylum because she’d been busy, focused on the task at hand. Now that she was stuck back in a cabin with nothing to do but watch a girl who she’d rescued from the asylum, she was starting to lose her mind.

Finally, halfway through the second week, Krissy glanced over at Claire in the living room, while she was trying to read and snapped her book shut. “Get up,” she said impatiently.

Claire looked up from her book, jumping at Krissy’s coolness.

“C’mon,” Krissy said, seeming oblivious to the other girl’s shock at her annoyance and speaking more to herself. “We’re going to go do _something_. He didn’t say we couldn’t go do something _together_ and he’s out getting food anyway. He’ll never know we were gone.”

She was bouncing on the balls of her feet, ready to leave, but she didn’t know where they were going to go. They could hike around outside she supposed, but she wanted to be around other people that weren’t Ben and Jesse. She wanted to be around strangers she didn’t have to talk to. She wanted to be someplace with loud music.

Krissy grinned.

“Let’s go clubbing.”

Claire’s look became inquisitive.

“It’s alright,” Krissy reassured her, pulling her up from the armchair with one hand. “It’ll be loud and full of people, but you won’t have to talk to anyone. All you’ll have to do is dance.” She smiled slightly. “I’ll get you in some suitable clothes and we can go. It’ll be fun.”

Claire didn’t say anything, but Krissy tugged her into her room and immediately began digging in her dresser for the clothes she used to go have fun. She wasn’t sure any of them would really fit Claire that well. Krissy was about the same size as Claire, but Claire was a lot thinner than she probably usually was after having spent so much time in an asylum with not very good food to eat. It took her a moment, but finally she pulled out a pair of black skinny jeans, a black camisole, and a large white tank top. She threw them to Claire and said, “Put these on. Then I’ll do your makeup.”

Without moving, Claire dropped the clothes to floor and began to strip right there. Krissy watched in shock for a moment, before going back to the dresser and searching for some clothes for herself. She pulled out a pair of blue skinny jeans, another black camisole, and a thin long-sleeved white t-shirt with cuffs that flared out. The back was shredded. She striped and dressed as well, before pulling her makeup bag out of her underwear drawer. She put her hair up in a messy bun, gave herself winged eyeliner and a coat of clear lip gloss before turning to Claire.

“Your turn,” she said.

She tugged her towards her, sat her down on the bed and gave her the same makeover. She stepped back and smiled. “You look great.”

They each stepped into a pair of matching boots before stepping out of Krissy’s room. Jesse was home by then, sitting at the kitchen table on his laptop. When he saw them, his eyes widened, but only for a moment before narrowing suspiciously.

"Where are you going?”

“Out,” Krissy said defiantly. “We’ll be back. Sometime. That okay with you, warden?”

Jesse only glared at his laptop’s screen.

“Goodbye then,” she said, grinning and tugging Claire with her towards the door.

The drive from the cabin to the nearest club that accepted patrons under the age of eighteen was too far away, so, heading into the metropolis closest to the cabin, Krissy began looking for a club that looked like it would be easy to sneak or bribe their way into. She finally settled upon one called _In Due Order_ and parked their car a block away out of habit. She helped Claire out of the car and led her down the street towards the club. She pulled her wallet out of her back pocket and checked how much cash she had. More than enough for a sufficient bribe, she thought, and then some to buy drinks.

There was a line outside the door, slowly making its way through the doors after getting cleared by the bouncer who was a very tough looking boy with hair nearly as white as skin. He was exceedingly attractive and seemed to be intent upon flirting with every girl that passed him. Krissy almost laughed. This was going to be far too easy.

“IDs?” he asked as they approached him.

“Do we really need those?” Krissy pouted, subtly tugging the front of her shirt down a bit. “I’m sure you trust us.”

The bouncer laughed lightly. “I might,” he said. “If you have something for me.”

He was smirking and Krissy knew exactly what he was thinking she was going to give him. The thought alone made her ill. However, she kept her face impassive and pulled a one-hundred dollar bill out of her wallet. “I’m sure this more than compensates for anything I could’ve given you,” she said, winking.

The bouncer didn’t seem entirely pleased, but Krissy was moving past him with Claire in tow before he could change his mind about letting them through.

Music pulsed through the club, deafening her the moment she entered it. Lights were flashing all across the walls and the dance floor was little more than a mass of bodies all moving to the same beat. There was a small sitting area, comprised of high tables and chairs to their left, and a bar where a pretty East Indian girl with a stud above her lip was serving drinks to several patrons. Many of the people in the club looked as young as or younger than Krissy and Claire and Krissy took this as a sign that they really were supposed to be here.

“Quite a place, huh?” she said, turning to Claire.

But Claire wasn’t next to her anymore.

She glanced around the club in a panic, but her anxiety ebbed almost instantly.

Claire had made her way onto the dance floor. She was swaying in time with the music between two boys. Her hair was whipping all about her face. Her pale, slender arms were clutching at either side of her head as she tossed it from side to side. And in that moment, it was no wonder to Krissy why every boy in the club seemed to be congregating around the other girl. She was, by far, the most beautiful person there.

She was angelic.

Her plan had been to get drinks when she first got into the club, but that idea seemed so stupid now. You didn’t come to clubs to drink. Sure that was part of it, but the true beauty of clubs like this, the real reason you came to them was to dance, to be a part of one entity, all engulfed in the music like Claire was.

Pulling her shirt up over her head, Krissy tossed it to the floor and let it lay. She didn’t need it. Not here. Besides, wearing long sleeves wasn’t a good idea in clubs. She’d get too hot. She made her way towards Claire, already swaying her hips. When she reached her, she pulled her into her arms and began to dance with her. Claire didn’t protest at all. She moved with her as though they’d planned it. She ran her fingers up through Krissy’s hair and stared into her eyes. Krissy was drunk off the music, off the feeling of Claire’s fingers roaming not only through her hair but across the rest of her body. She hardly needed alcohol. She doubted anyone else would need it either if they’d just join them on the dance floor. They’d know what true drunkenness was. They could get a _real_ high.

Shaking her hair the rest of the way out of its bun, she pressed into Claire’s touch. She looked at her as she placed her hands on her hips, moving closer and closer and closer to her as they danced. Claire smiled at this. It was the first smile Krissy had ever seen cross her lips and it only seemed right in that moment to kiss her, so she did. She pressed their lips together and was surprised when Claire not only didn’t protest, but moved their bodies so they were flush against one another. She was certain people were staring. She was sure there were boys thinking this was all an act for their enjoyment and maybe it was. She didn’t really know what was going on in Claire’s mind right now, but if it was, she didn’t care. She liked this. She liked it more than anything else and she never, ever wanted it to end.

It was too soon that Claire pulled away, but she was still smiling and all Krissy wanted to do was pull her lips back to her own. Never once had Krissy thought she might be gay, but standing here, after having kissed Claire, it only made sense that she would be. She didn’t find boys attractive at all. She was always looking at girls. And Claire was the most beautiful girl she’d ever seen in her life.

Everyone around them was still surging in time to the music. There was nowhere they needed to go. Nowhere they needed to be.

With a smile, Krissy placed her hand on the back of Claire’s neck and gently pulled her lips back to her own.

* * *

Once the song finished, Krissy pulled Claire off the dance floor.

They were both smiling.

Not saying a word, she kissing her for a long time, standing on the edge of the mass of undulating bodies. When she finally pulled away, she pressed their foreheads together and said so only Claire could hear, “Go get us a table over there. I’ll get us some drinks.”

As usual, Claire didn’t speak, but she nodded, indicating she understood and took off.

Krissy waited until Claire had settled herself in one of the tables in the center of the small dining area before going to the bar. She checked her wallet again, though she already knew how much cash was in there and pulled out her fake ID. She ordered two glasses of champagne and a shrimp cocktail.

“Celebrating something?” the pretty bartender asked.

Smiling at her, Krissy nodded. “I guess so.”

“What is it?”

“I have a girlfriend,” she replied proudly. She glanced over her shoulder at Claire who was staring up at the ceiling with her head tilted to the side. She seemed to be concentrating on something, but Krissy wasn’t sure what it could be other than the disco ball spinning madly over the dance floor.

“Congratulations,” the bartender said, making Krissy jump and turn around again. The shrimp and drinks were ready. She nodded once to the bartender before grabbing the drinks in one hand and the shrimp in the other and hurrying across the floor towards Claire. She watched her feet as she walked and noticed the tiles of the floor were lit underneath by dimly glowing blue lights.

Krissy slid into the seat across from Claire’s and passed her one of the drinks before setting the shrimp on the table in between them. Immediately, Claire reached for the food. She dipped the shrimp into the sauce before popping it into her mouth. Krissy followed suit, her gaze wandering to the dance floor. She was mesmerized by the teeming mass of bodies, but then she blinked, seeming to remember Claire was in front of her and turned her eyes upon her instead.

Claire had gone back to staring up at the ceiling with her head tilted to one side.

“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what you’re doing,” Krissy said, looking down to stir her drink. She looked up from what she was doing for a minute to see if Claire was going to respond, but she didn’t move.

“Will you at least tell me why you don’t talk?”

Still no response.

Krissy sighed exasperatedly. “I kind of think we’re dating now, so you could at least tell me. I won’t tell anyone else if you don’t want me to.”

Claire blinked and her eyes shifted from the ceiling to Krissy’s face. She straightened her posture, but she only continued to blink at her owlishly rather than respond.

There was a silence between them that the loud music of the club filled without their permission. Krissy stared at Claire and Claire stared right back. She seemed to be trying to figure something out or decide something and yet at the same time, she looked very surprised by what Krissy had said.

Finally, realizing she may have been a little insensitive, Krissy said, her voice softer and much more understanding than before, “Did something really bad happen to you in the asylum? Or before?”

Claire’s expression fell in an instant. She looked sad and scared, though Krissy could swear her expression had barely changed. Clearly something bad had happened or she wouldn’t be like this. Lack of speech or communication was a symptom of post-traumatic stress – or so Krissy had heard – and Claire definitely seemed to be suffering from some form of this disorder.

Krissy bit her lip. “Can I help?”

Claire shook her head. She stared at the table, slouching slightly.

“Why not?”

Claire shrugged. Krissy wondered what it must be like to feel no one could help you.

They were quiet for another short expanse of time. Then, not knowing what else to do, Krissy leaned over the table and pulled Claire’s lips to her own. She kissed her tenderly, the lights from the disco ball hovering over the dance floor flashing over her eyelids. When she finally pulled away, she was smiling again, even though Claire looked slightly shocked.

“C’mon,” she said, finishing the rest of her drink and eating another shrimp. “Sitting here is only going to make you sadder. Let’s go dance some more.”

Claire smiled and allowed Krissy to pull her back onto the technicolored dance floor.


	6. Cinq

_Abandoned cabin in the woods_

_Appalachian Mountains, North Carolina 2013_

It was well past midnight when Claire and Krissy finally stumbled through the doorway, their hands covering their mouths as they tried to suppress the giggles issuing from them. They were both more than a little drunk and knew it had been quite stupid and very irresponsible of them to drive themselves home after their night at the club, but Krissy hadn’t wanted to leave the car in the city overnight. There were too many incriminating objects within it that the police could find if they towed it in the morning.

Once the door of the cabin closed a little too loudly behind them, Krissy pressed Claire up against the wooden cabin wall, held her arms above her head and kissed her. Krissy had figured out that Claire wasn’t expecting more kisses when she pulled her lips to her own before dragging her back onto the dance floor. However, as the night had gone on, she seemed to be less and less surprised when Krissy kissed her, until soon she was initiating the kisses as well.

Now as Krissy kissed her, she let out a little sigh of contentment and Krissy placed her free hand on Claire’s cheek. She dropped Claire’s arms and held the other girl’s face in her hands. She pulled away, pressing their foreheads together and said, a smile on her face, her eyes alight with mischief, “Let’s go back to my room.”

Claire smiled and nodded.

Krissy laced their fingers together and led Claire back to her room. The curtains were drawn and no light could make its way through them. She left Claire at the edge of the bed before rummaging in the nightstand for some matches. She felt her way over to the dresser and lit a small row of candles there. They didn’t light up very much of the room, but they lit up enough that when Krissy turned, she could see Claire, smiling at her. She could see the way her pale blonde hair framed her face and the way one of the straps of the tank top she’d borrowed had fallen from her shoulder.

Before tonight, Krissy had never thought of herself as gay. She’d never had much time to think through what her sexuality might be. She’d lived with boys, but she’d never been attracted to them. She’d always thought of them as business partners. If they thought of her as more, she got away from them fast. She didn’t want their feelings for her messing with her work. But now as she stared at Claire, looking messy and beautiful, she knew beyond a doubt that she would never have been satisfied with a boy anyway, not when girls like Claire were out there in the world. But she didn’t have to look for any of them. She had Claire with her and she didn’t think she’d trade her for anyone else even if she had the chance.

Claire pushed herself back on the bed so she was leaning against the headboard, her legs bent slightly and spread just as much. She gave Krissy an innocent look, but the innocence was so false that a small crooked smile made the corner of Krissy’s mouth turn upwards. She was still smiling as she pulled her tank top up over her head and let it fall to the floor. As she stepped out of her jeans, she kicked the door shut and lunged towards Claire, kissing her again. This time Claire was ready for her and she helped Krissy remove her own tank top and pants. They seemed to have left their shoes by the door, though neither of them could really remember having done so.

Breathing heavily, her lips swollen from so much kissing, Krissy’s fingers splayed out over Claire’s stomach. Her pinky finger and thumb touched each side of the bottom of her ribcage. She was very thin, but Krissy knew that wouldn’t last forever. She was no longer in an asylum she didn’t belong in. She was going to be safe. Krissy would make sure of that.

Carefully, Krissy reached behind herself and unhooked her bra. She took it off and flung it to the floor before bending down to kiss Claire again and unhook her bra at the same time. Claire threw hers in the same direction Krissy had.

“I-I’ve never done this with a girl before,” Krissy confessed, pulling away, her cheeks turning red. She was thankful for the dim lighting. “I’ve never done this with _anyone_ before, actually. Have you ever done this with anyone before?”

Claire shook her head.

“There’s a first time for everything, I guess,” Krissy said nervously before going back to kissing her tenderly.

She kissed her lips a little longer before she kissed down to her chest. She took a moment to suckle her breast before she continued to move down her torso. When Krissy reached the V in between Claire’s legs, she paused. The panties she was wearing were silk and embroidered with polka-dots. She could see through the panties. Claire shaved. She wondered if she’d been allowed razorblades in the shower at the asylum.

Glancing up at Claire briefly, Krissy hooked her thumbs under the waistband of the underwear and pulled them down Claire’s legs to her ankles. Claire kicked them off and blinked as she watched them fall off the side of the bed onto the floor amid the rest of their clothes. Krissy took off her own underwear and then lay on top of the other girl, kissing her. Claire’s fingers ran through her hair over and over again and Krissy knotted her fingers in the hair at the crown of Claire’s head.

When she finally pulled away, she spread Claire’s legs and settled herself between them. Without hesitation, Krissy’s tongue darted out of her mouth and flicked the hard nub of Claire’s clit. She girl beneath her gasped and jerked, but Krissy smirked. That had to mean she was doing something right and when she did it again and Claire moaned, she knew she was.

After a few more teasing flicks of her tongue, she wrapped her whole mouth around the tiny nub and began to suck on it, her tongue circling it inside her mouth. Claire was writing beneath her. Her fingers scrabbling at the bedsheets and clutching at them, pulling them up and twisting them. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was open and soft moans and gasps were coming from it every now and then.

Never before had Krissy felt such satisfaction.

With a cry of pleasure, Claire arched her hips up off the bed and shuddered before she lay still, gasping. Krissy moved away from her and crawled back up the bed to kiss her. Claire was breathing heavily, but her fingers curled around the back of Krissy’s neck and pulled her closer, holding her lips against her own for what felt like forever and yet wasn’t long enough. When she finally let her go, she made no move to return the favor Krissy had just done her, but Krissy didn’t mind. She wasn’t even sure she wanted Claire do to anything.

Eventually, Krissy fell asleep, her limbs tangled with Claire’s.

Anyone else might’ve been uncomfortable, having a girl as bony as Claire curled around and pressed up against them, but Krissy had never had such a good night’s sleep.

* * *

A loud knock on her door, broke Krissy out of sleep and back into consciousness. Beside her, Claire jerked awake as well. Krissy moaned in protest. There was a hammering in her head, the beginnings of a hangover.

“What d’you want?” she groaned from the bed.

“Breakfast,” came Ben’s voice from the other side. “When are you getting up?”

 “I’m not,” she shouted back. “There’s eggs and bacon in the fridge. You can make your own breakfast.”

A sound of frustration emitted from behind the door.

“I’m not getting up,” she said for good measure, before collapsing back in bed beside Claire. The other girl smiled and wrapped her skinny arms back around Krissy. Krissy smiled back and within minutes she was falling back to sleep.

When she opened her eyes next, the cabin was silent and her hangover had abated slightly. She pushed herself up into a sitting position and looked over at Claire.

The other girl was lying on her side, facing Krissy. Her arms were reaching towards Krissy and slightly bent. One of her palms was facing upwards. Her mouth was parted just enough to let air in and out. Her golden hair was spread out across her pillow, catching the few rays of sun that managed to make it around the blackout curtains on the window.

Krissy brushed back a few loose strands from her face and smiled at her. She still wasn’t sure what they were now. She’d thought that Claire was her girlfriend, but Claire had seemed both surprised and slightly uncomfortable about that term. Krissy bit her lip. Suddenly the whole thing concerned her.

What were they?

Not really wanting to think about it, she gently shook Claire awake and said, “Let’s go look through the woods.”

Claire blinked quizzically at her.

Krissy sighed and rolled her eyes. “C’mon,” she said. “It’ll be fun. We could do with some fresh air.”

Claire only continued to look at her, but when Krissy got up off the bed to get dressed, she followed suit. This time Krissy pulled out a flowery blouse and skirt for Claire. She grabbed herself a pair of shorts and a tank top. They both pulled on the boots again.

“Where are you two going?” a voice said behind them as they left Krissy’s room.

Krissy sighed and turned. Jesse was standing there with his arms crossed over his chest and scowl on his face.

“I really don’t think that’s any of your business,” she replied, turning to open the door.

“Nothing good is going to come of this, Krissy,” he said. “You can think I’m wrong all you want, but I’m not.”

Setting her jaw, Krissy wheeled around to tell him to fuck off, but he was already gone.

Claire was giving her a confused and slightly worried look, but Krissy shook her head and wrenched open the door so hard it rattled on its hinges. “Ignore him,” she told Claire, tugging her out of the cabin and into the warm midday summer air. “He’s just being a jerk.” A part of her wanted to say jealous, but that couldn’t be right. He’d never shown interest in her before now.

But then it dawned on her. Maybe it wasn’t _her_ was interested in.

Maybe it was Claire.

The thought made Krissy’s steps stutter as she started away from the cabin, but she shook her head almost as soon as it occurred to her. No. Jesse wouldn’t be jealous of _her_ with Claire. He hadn’t wanted Claire to join their little family to begin with. It made no sense that he’d suddenly be jealous over Claire being more than just a friend to Krissy. He was just being overly cautious. And a jerk. That was all. And _she_ was just overthinking things.

It was then she noticed her footsteps were the only ones crunching through the dead leaves that littered the floor of the forest surrounding the cabin. She turned around to see where Claire had gotten to and saw her following slowly behind. She kept bending down to grab something in the leaves before straightening, walking a little more, and then doing it again. It wasn’t until she got closer that Krissy saw what she was reaching for and what she was clutching in her other hand.

“What are you going to do with those?” Krissy asked.

She didn’t really expect a response and she didn’t get one. Claire just kept following her, picking up the feathers as she went.

Krissy walked slowly. She had a destination in mind and it was nearby, but it took twice as long to get there, since Claire kept gathering feathers as they went. Finally, whatever trail she’d been following seemed to end as they turned a corner and Claire stuffed the feathers into a pocket in the pair of shorts she was wearing under her skirt before skipping to catch up with Krissy and lacing their fingers together. She smiled at the other girl and they strode on in silence until they reached a large lake that almost looked like a very wide river. Pulled up against the shore nearest them was a small wooden row boat.

“Ever been on one of these before?” Krissy asked, glancing at Claire as she approached the boat. She threw the rope hanging over the edge of it to the side and grabbed one oar.

Claire nodded. She bit her lip as though she wanted to speak, but was stopping herself.

“It’s okay,” Krissy said gently, looking up at her after throwing aside one of the oars, “there’s no one else here. It’s just me. You can talk to me if you want to.” She smiled.

Claire turned red and smiled a little before saying so softly Krissy almost missed it, “I used to go fishing with my dad sometimes. We’d take a boat like this to the middle of a lake and sit there and fish for hours. I-I usually ended up getting bored, so I brought a book with me and would read while he kept fishing.”

Krissy blinked. That was more than she’d ever expected Claire to say, especially the first time she really spoke to her. She didn’t exactly count the time in the car since she’d only said one sentence. She blinked again and went back to getting the boat ready for both of them to sit in. She brushed out some dead leaves and said, through a throat that seemed to have become very dry, “You, uh, you were close with your dad?”

She looked up. Claire only nodded this time.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

This time Claire shrugged. “I guess I probably should,” she said softly, looking away and staring at the horizon to her left. “I mean, my mom sent me to so many therapists, but I always had to lie. I had to say my dad left us, which he kind of did, but that wasn’t the whole truth. I wanted to tell them the whole truth because I wanted them to stop trying to tell me it wasn’t my fault our dad left when it was, but I couldn’t tell them _that_ either. I just had to nod my head and pretend I was getting better, but I never was. Finally, I just couldn’t take it anymore.” She looked down at her hands that were clasped in front of her. “So I ran away, promising myself I’d find the angel who took my dad and kill him.” She looked up at Krissy, her expression defiant. In that moment, Krissy had never been more sure Claire was a warrior and a force to be reckoned with.

After a short silence during which Krissy stared at the other girl more than she probably should have been, she swallowed and said, her voice tentative, “You know if you kill the angel you’ll kill your dad, right?”

Claire swallowed as well, looking down again. “I know,” she said, “but I don’t think there’s anything left of my dad. Not anymore. It’s been too long. When the angel possessed me before taking back my dad, I knew everything it knew and it knew that if it possessed me or my dad for too long, it would steal our consciousness and become one with our bodies.”

“Why did it possess you?” Krissy asked, standing near the front of the boat and beckoning Claire over to join her. She wondered if Claire knew she’d figured out that Claire had been possessed ages ago when they first came back from the asylum.

Walking down to the edge of the water before climbing into the boat and sitting on one of the two benches stretched across it, she said, “Because my dad was done. He didn’t want to be the angel’s vessel anymore. He came home to my mom and I and he was going to be a part of our family again, but then some demons came and tried to hurt me and my mom. One of them possessed my mom and threatened to kill me, but my dad came to save us and these two other hunters. Some other demon hurt my dad and so the angel possessed me and told my dad it was going to take me instead, but my dad forced it to take him. So it did.”

She swallowed hard, looking away, blinking rapidly.

Krissy pushed off from the lake’s shore and climbed in. She moved around and sat on the bench across from Claire. She maneuvered the boat around a bit and began navigating it like a canoe to get them out into deeper water.

“Do you know the name of the angel?” she asked, using both of the oars now, moving them to the center of the lake.

There was a brief silence before Claire spoke again.

“Castiel. The angel’s name is Castiel.”

Krissy’s eyes widened and she swallowed hard, but she masked her shock expertly in an instant. “Do you have any idea where he might be?” she asked, pretending she’d never heard the name before.

The other girl nodded. “I think he’s with those hunters that helped me and my mom. The Winchesters. They’re famous in the hunting community. They’re good people, but…but if they get in the way of me killing Castiel, I’ll kill them, too.” She spoke softly, her voice deadly in how quiet it was.

Krissy didn’t doubt a word she said. A part of her wanted to go back to the cabin and call Sam and Dean and let them know that Claire was after them, but she would be betraying Claire if she did that and she couldn’t betray Claire. She couldn’t. But wasn’t she doing that already? By withholding information? She swallowed hard. If she told her, would she leave them? She didn’t want her to leave. Not after all that had happened between them, but was it really her place to stop her from going if she wanted to? The answer was no, but that didn’t change the fact Krissy desperately wanted to.

Forcing a smile and wanting nothing more than to change the subject, Krissy said, “I like lying out here on his boat sometimes. It’s really peaceful and sometimes after a hunt, I need that. I thought you’d like it, too.”

Without preamble, she stopped rowing and climbed off her bench. She lay down on the smooth bottom of the boat and closed her eyes, her hands on her stomach. There was enough room in the boat for both of them to lie down and, before too long, she felt another, slimmer body settling next to hers. Claire reached over and laced their fingers together. This time when she smiled, it was genuine.

For what felt like several hours, but was probably only one or two, they lay in the boat together, their eyes closed, their fingers interlocked, the sun beating down on them and Krissy couldn’t remember having ever felt this at peace with life.

* * *

The next few days seemed to pass by in a haze of happiness.

Krissy woke up long after the sun had risen, her arms wrapped around Claire. She would make them breakfast and then they’d have the rest of the day to themselves. Ben and Jesse got very frustrated very fast, both protesting what they had been since Claire’s arrival: that she could be dangerous, she could end up hurting them either on purpose or on accident, but Krissy had long since stopped listening to these angry rants and instead told them they needed to accept she was with them now for better or for worse.

This hardly seemed to settle the matter, but Jesse and Ben stopped nagging her about it so much. They were still trying to find new hunting jobs, insisting that Krissy stay with her until they felt they could trust her.

This suited Krissy just fine.

The girls spent their days doing various things both within and around the cabin as well as the small town nearby. They went back to the rowboat several days and others just walked through the woods. Every time they did so, Claire collected more feathers until Krissy was certain the other girl had a rather large pile of them back at the cabin, though she never saw where they were put.

At least, not until one day after breakfast, when Claire dragged Krissy back into her bedroom without saying a word – she never spoke within the confines of the cabin or within earshot of Jesse and Ben – sat her down on the rug, opened one of the dresser drawers, and pulled out a small handful of feathers. She placed them on the carpet and got up to open one of the windows before sitting back down on the rug. She picked up one of the feathers and began to weave it into her hair. Or tried to before it slipped through her fingers and fluttered back to the carpet. She tried a few more times before Krissy took it out of her hands.

“Let me try,” she murmured, picking up the feather.

She took a small clump of Claire’s hair in her hands and began to carefully weave the feather into it. When she let it go, the feather stayed in place and Claire beamed at her. Soon, she lay down on the rug, her hair spread out around her, handing Krissy feathers, seeming to want to fill her hair with them. Krissy didn’t bother asking her why. She knew Claire wouldn’t answer her with the windows open and both Ben and Jesse in the cabin.

Everything was so peaceful, so _right_. Krissy had never felt happier in her life.

It was therefore that no one could have known it was all about to end.


	7. Six

_Abandoned cabin in the woods_

_Appalachian Mountains, North Carolina 2013_

The sun was setting on the horizon.

It was one of the last days of spring before summer set in and, as Krissy stared out the window, she couldn’t stop herself from smiling. If the last few weeks had been any indication, this summer was going to be fun and one of the best of her life. She would spend the days with Claire, hanging out in the cabin and the woods and, when Jesse finally figured out she wasn’t going to do anything, she and Claire could start hunting together. She wondered what kind of hunter she was. She figured she had to be good. She seemed good. But she wasn’t sure. It’d be interesting to find out.

She continued watching the horizon, watching the sun sink beneath it. She was waiting for night to fall. She and Claire were going to walk out into the middle of the woods and watch the stars tonight. Though living in the middle of nowhere on the side of a mountain was not always entertaining, it did have its advantages and the main one was there were no city lights. They could always see the stars really well at night.

There were footsteps behind her as someone walked into the kitchen.

“What are you doing with that?” Jesse asked.

She was standing idly in the living room, still staring out the window with a blanket under her arm, the sunlight illuminating her front.

“Claire and I are going to go watch the stars,” she told him without looking at him.

“If you say so,” he replied grimly.

Krissy pursed her lips as she always did when Jesse expressed his dislike at Claire’s presence at the cabin, but said nothing. They’d already had this fight many times and she didn’t want to be in a bad mood before she and Claire headed out.

They stood in silence. Jesse making a sandwich in the kitchen and Krissy watching the last dregs of sunlight disappear behind the horizon before Claire appeared. Recently, they’d gone out and bought her a wardrobe of her own. It was similar to Krissy’s in many ways, though it contained more black. Today Claire was wearing a white dress polka-dotted with pink flowers and a pair of matching flats that slapped against the hardwood floor as she entered the room. Krissy turned at last and smiled at her. Claire smiled back.

“Ready to go?” Krissy asked.

The other girl nodded.

“See you later,” Krissy said to Jesse.

He only grunted in reply, refusing to look up from his sandwich.

They walked hand in hand from the cabin door and into the thicket of trees surrounding the cabin. The leaves obscured most of the sky from their view and made the forest darker than it already was. Krissy flicked on a flashlight and they walked until they broke through the trees into a clearing. While Claire stood by, Krissy spread out the blanket. Then they lay down, their gazes turned towards the now fully darkened sky, and she flicked the flashlight back off.

Night in a place where there were no city lights was truly amazing.

Having grown up in the city in Kansas, Krissy had never seen a view like this before she, Ben, and Jesse found the cabin while hiking in the woods. In fact, it wasn’t until that night she’d _really_ seen it. She’d always been busy before doing various things. Mainly hunting. She’d never once thought to step outside her door and look up. Now, as cheesy as it sounded, she was glad she’d waited to see it with Claire.

She turned to the other girl.

In the dim light from the mostly-full moon, she could see only a small part of her features. Claire’s face was upturned to the sky. Her eyes were wide, trying to take in as much of it as she possibly could, and her mouth was parted slightly as though in awe and surprise. Krissy wondered if she’d never gotten the chance to see this before either.

After a while, Krissy looked away and continued to watch the stars twinkling above them. She wondered vaguely if her father was still alive if they would’ve gotten to do something like this together. She didn’t think about her father often. Thinking about the past wasn’t going to help anything and she didn’t like grieving. It distracted her from what was going on the present. It could make things difficult for her when hunting or even when she was trying to function in her everyday life.

She wondered if Claire felt that way about her own father.

She wondered how she felt about her mother.

Krissy wondered a lot of things about Claire Novak, but she never asked. Partially because she didn’t think it was any of her business and mostly because she wasn’t sure she’d get an answer. She let Claire tell her what she wanted when she wanted. It was the only way she would ever get anything out of her and, after all she’d been through, Krissy didn’t want to pressure her more anyhow.

She turned to look at Claire again. Claire was looking right back at her. Krissy wanted to tell her that everything was going to be okay, that she was going to make it okay, but she didn’t know how to word that sentence without making it seem like she thought Claire couldn’t take care of herself. She knew she could. She’d seen it in that asylum, but she wanted to protect her. Everyone needed protecting once in a while, didn’t they?

Still not speaking, Krissy placed a hand on Claire’s cheek and kissed her. She kissed her softly and tenderly. She felt Claire’s fingers move up into her hair, winding around the strands and knotting themselves gently at the base of her skull. She pressed into her touch, opening her mouth and deepening the kiss.

It was then that it happened.

She’d thought she’d imagined the streak of light out of the corner of her eye at first, but when she blinked it was still there.

Krissy turned to get a better view and her eyes widened.

There were bright spots of light in the sky in front of the stars. Some of them were streaks, lengthening as they moved across the heavens. It took her a moment to realize they were falling and then her eyes widened and she felt panic set in her chest.

What was this? What did this mean? It looked like a meteor shower, but no meteor shower she’d ever seen or heard of was this bright and she was certain there were never this many meteors at one time. They went on as far as the eye could see in any direction. She wondered if this was happening all over the world, all over the US, all over North Carolina, or maybe just within a one-hundred mile radius.

She was turning to Claire, prepared to ask her what she thought this was, but Claire was standing. Her eyes were fixed to the sky, riveted by the sight before her. She was staring at the meteors with the same awe she’d been staring at the stars only ten minutes earlier, but there was something else in her expression, something else Krissy couldn’t quite define.

“What is it?” she asked, hating how hysterical her voice sounded. She tugged on the end of Claire’s dress, trying to get her attention, but the other girl didn’t move. She gave no indication she’d heard her or felt her tugging at her dress at all. “Claire! What is it?”

More than once, Krissy had felt that Claire knew and understood things she didn’t and she could feel that now more than ever. She didn’t know what it was. Perhaps it was the remaining grace coursing through her veins, but whatever it was –

Her grace.

Krissy stopped tugging at Claire’s dress. Her own eyes now wide with shock and fear.

She looked up at the sky again, at the streaks of light growing longer as other bright spots of light appeared turning into streaks of their own.

Her mouth opened slightly in shock.

"Falling angels,” she whispered. “They’re falling angels.”

Without a word, Claire collapsed in a heap beside her.

* * *

While the angels fell around them, lighting up the sky and blocking out the stars, Krissy knelt next to Claire’s limp body on the ground, shaking her, trying to knock her out of whatever trance she had fallen into, but nothing she did seemed to do any good. The steady rise and fall of her chest and the pulse fluttering beneath her skin were the only ways Krissy knew Claire was in a trance rather than dead.

“Claire, wake up!” she cried out, shaking her again. There were tears of desperation and worry on her cheeks now. “You have to wake up!”

But she wouldn’t. She only continued laying there, staring blankly up at the sky.

What had happened to her? Why was she like this? And what was _this_?

Words flitted through Krissy’s mind and finally one stuck.

 _Catatonia_.

Krissy didn’t know much about catatonia. She only knew it happened when someone suffered a trauma and couldn’t force themselves to recover from it and deal with it quickly. She also knew that there was a chance someone wouldn’t wake from it if they fell too deep inside themselves.

Pushing herself back from Claire, though continuing to stare at her, she wondered if she’d ever be the girl that smiled and laughed with her again. The girl was staring at the sky with wide eyes that seemed to see nothing of the world around them. Her body was limp and showed no signs of life no matter what Krissy did to it. And her mouth was parted just barely as though she were surprised. In fact, her expression was exactly as it had been before she’d collapsed when she’d first seen the lights in the sky.

Krissy turned her face skyward again and watched the angels falling from the sky. One of them was falling over the town at the base of the mountain. She heard a loud crash and even some of the screams reached her ears as it hit the ground. She stood, trying to see over the tops of the trees leading down into town, but it was too far and the trees were too tall.

Turning back to Claire, Krissy knew she had to take her back to the cabin. She didn’t bother rolling up the blanket. She decided to wrap it around Claire instead and lifted her into her arms. She was surprised how light she was. It was as though her bones were hollow.

The walk back to the cabin was a lot longer than the walk to the clearing. Mainly because Krissy forgot the flashlight and kept running into trees. She was certain by the time she did get back to the cabin both her and Claire would be covered in bruises.

When she broke through the cover of the trees, she saw the cabin door open and Jesse and Ben standing on the porch. Ben was staring up at the sky with wide eyes, while Jesse ran over to them. Krissy had never seen him look so worried. He opened his mouth to say something when he reached her, but when he saw Claire limp in her arms, he asked instead, “What happened?”

“She collapsed,” Krissy replied. “She saw the lights in the sky and she collapsed. I tried to wake her up, but she just…” She trailed off. Tears welled up in her eyes. What was going to happen to Claire? Would she ever be alright again?

“Here,” Jesse said softly. He lifted Claire out of Krissy’s arms. Krissy had never seen him treat anyone or anything more gently. She watched his face as he carried her back into the cabin. He looked like someone had taken a knife and was trying to cut his heart out. When he set her on Krissy’s bed inside the cabin, he brushed her pale hair out of her eyes. He didn’t say anything before leaving the room.

Krissy watched him go with a sort of stunned expression on her face.

It seemed she wasn’t the only one who cared for Claire after all.

* * *

Claire knew the minute she saw the lights in the sky what they were. Well, maybe not the _minute_ she’d seen them, but as they’d started to turn into streaks, as they’d started to _fall_ , she’d known.

They were angels. They were falling angels. And a million possibilities filled her mind.

She could leave and finish what she’d been doing before Krissy had found her. She could kill _all_ of the angels. Then no one would suffer a fate like her father had ever again. No one would ever be turned into a vessel in the name of divine purpose ever again.

But just as she was thinking this, it was as though someone had flipped a switch in her mind and the world fell away from her. Her legs slipped out from under her and she collapsed. As Krissy began to shout for her, as the angels continued to fall, the world around her faded and turned to black. Then, quite suddenly, it came back, but it wasn’t the same world. It wasn’t even where she’d been before. Yes, she was in a forest, but it wasn’t the same. It was dark and everything was glowing blue.

Claire was lying on the floor of this forest. The ground beneath her was smooth. There were no dead leaves here. She pushed herself up into a sitting position and saw she was lying on glowing blue grass. She ran her fingers through it. It was the softest grass she’d ever felt in her life. It was more like she was touching someone’s hair rather than a plant.

Pushing herself to her feet, she looked up into the dark sky. There were no falling angels here. Only silver twinkling stars. She reached out a hand and traced the stars with the tip of her finger. An afterglow of silver light followed her finger and soon she was playing connect-the-dots with the stars, giggling and smiling to herself.

_Don’t you want to find a way out of this world?_

Claire jumped. The words came from a disembodied voice that seemed to echo all around her. She didn’t recognize the voice and automatically didn’t trust it. If this voice was telling her to leave this world, maybe she shouldn’t. Maybe it would be safer to stay here forever. Who knew what would happen to her body in the material world, but wouldn’t she be safe in this world where she could trace the stars, where nature was a bioluminescent blue, and where there were no falling angels?

No, this world was far simpler, far more beautiful, and more desirable than the world she’d left behind. She would stay here.

  _For as long as you can get away with,_ the voice said and Claire frowned.

“How do you know I don’t want to stay here?” she croaked. Her voice still sounded strange to her. After two years of not using it, it wasn’t as strong as it should have been or sounded how she remembered it.

 _Because no one wants to stay here,_ the voice replied. _Not really. Yes, this world is beautiful. It is simpler. But it is also a fantasy and everyone enjoys a fantasy, but everyone also wants to return to reality eventually. So will you. If you’re not careful, if you don’t start trying to find your way out now, you may be stuck here indefinitely._

“I’ve already told you!” Claire shouted. “I don’t _want_ to leave here! I’m happy here! It’s beautiful here! And I’ve _always_ preferred fantasy to reality!”

The voice didn’t reply and that was almost worse than it telling her again that she would end up changing her mind.

It made her wonder if it wasn’t right after all.

* * *

Krissy sat on the edge of her bed, staring at Claire, her legs drawn up against her chest, her cheek resting on her knees. She was staring at the other girl, watching her breathe slowly in and out, watching her eyes blink every now and then, her gaze still fixed upon the ceiling, her mouth still open just enough to let air in and out.

The sun was finally rising, the rays spreading out across the carpeted floor of the room and creeping up the edge of the bedspread that tickled the floor. Soon it would shine right into Claire’s face and then Krissy’s and she thought she might get up and pull down the shade at that point, but she wasn’t sure. She hadn’t moved since Jesse had laid her down on her bed after she’d returned to the cabin the night before. She wasn’t sure she _could_ move. Every muscle in her body felt frozen and stiff.

For another two hours, she sat this way and the sun rose and stopped just below her face. She felt it warm her skin and thought about getting up to pull down the shade, but she didn’t want to get up and her muscles still felt frozen.

“Krissy,” said a soft voice from the doorway.

She turned. It was Ben.

He looked sad and she couldn’t figure out why. Hadn’t he hated Claire? Hadn’t he been just as suspicious of her as Jesse? Why would he be sad now? He had nothing to be sad about? Frankly, she was surprised that he and Jesse both weren’t ecstatic. Well, maybe not Jesse. She knew that his feelings towards Claire were mixed and confused at best.

“Come have breakfast,” Ben said softly, breaking her out of these thoughts. “I made some eggs and bacon. They’re not as good as yours, but you need to eat something.”

He was speaking as though she hadn’t been to the table for days, but it had only been a few hours in reality and right now the very last thing Krissy wanted to do was leave Claire’s side. She needed her right now more than Jesse and Ben did.

“She can’t hear or see you right now,” Ben said as though he’d read her mind. “She won’t notice if you’re gone. There isn’t anything you can do for her.”

Krissy only blinked at him. “How is eating eggs and bacon going to help her?”

Ben shrugged one shoulder. “It isn’t, I guess,” he said, “but taking care of yourself is going to make it easier for her once she wakes up.”

Krissy said nothing. She only turned resolutely back to Claire. She wasn’t going to leave her. She couldn’t. Not until she woke up. If that meant she didn’t eat, then so be it. She could go a few days without food.

 _But it might not be a few days until she wakes up,_ she reminded herself bitterly. _It could be much, much longer than that. She might never wake up._

* * *

The bioluminescent forest opened up onto a lake not unlike the one that Claire had spent so much time with Krissy on. There was even a small rowboat pulled up against the shore closest to her. The water glowed as blue as the forest did. In fact, it seemed to light up everything around it, it was glowing so brightly.

Kneeling at the edge of the lake, Claire dipped one finger into the lake and watched the water ripple out from her. The ripples seemed to grow larger as they moved away from her rather than smaller and by the time they’d reached the other shores, they were large waves, lapping up against the sand.

Suddenly, a scream split the calm air of the forest and a child ran back from the lake, clutching her hand. She had to press herself up against the trees on the edge of the lake to keep the water from touching her skin again. Claire gave the child a confused look. The water was fine, couldn’t she – but no. When she turned back to the water of the lake. It’d transformed from a gentle teal to an acrid green. It looked acidic and Claire immediately stood and pushed herself away from the water’s edge. She watched in horror as the bottom of the wooden boat, touching the water was burned into dust.

 _This world is not as beautiful as you believe it to be,_ the disembodied voice told her.

“I don’t care,” Claire replied, feeling mutinous. “It’s better than the world I left.”

 _This world is no better at all,_ the voice said. _In time you will see._

* * *

Three days passed and Claire didn’t wake up.

Krissy spent those days, staying by her side, occasionally walking to the bathroom to get a cup of water to dribble down her throat. She didn’t know how to feed her when she was in this state. A part of her knew that it would be better and safer to take Claire to the hospital, but what if they admitted her back into the asylum? What if the entire country was looking for her to put her back into the asylum? She couldn’t let her go back there. Not in any state, but especially not like this.

More than once a day, Ben and Jesse would come in and try to convince Krissy she needed to get up and eat, but Krissy was determined to stay with Claire until she woke up and if she didn’t wake up – she shook her head. She refused to think that way. Claire _would_ wake up. She _had_ to. She couldn’t just fall into herself and never come back. She couldn’t.

It was during one of her water runs that she came back into her room and found Jesse sitting there, his hand laced with Claire’s. He was speaking softly, too softly for Krissy to hear. She walked back to the bathroom and by the time she’d turned around to head back to her room, Jesse was leaving her room. She stared at him as he left, but he didn’t even seem to register her presence. Going into the room, she set the cup down on the nightstand.

Claire was as still and silent as ever.

For the first time she entertained the idea that Claire would never come back to her. She imagined months from now, Claire still lying here like this, still silent, slowly losing weight as she did not eat. She would die that way. She would die if she couldn’t get up again.

Krissy’s hands clenched into fists and tears filled her eyes.

“You have to wake up,” she said sternly, staring down at her. “You have to. You can’t leave me here alone. You’re all I have. You’re-you’re more to me than just a friend or girlfriend, okay? You’re more than-than _anything_ to me. You can’t just never come back.”

But those words were useless and she knew it.

Claire couldn’t hear her. She was in fairyland and the world of the living was not permitted entrance there.

* * *

After seeing the acid lake, Claire put as much distance between herself and it as possible. The rest of the forest was just as beautiful as it had been when she’d arrived and she thought the voice was just playing with her. One acid lake was not going to ruin the rest of the glowing forest for her. There were golden butterflies that had strings hanging from them. She could tie herself to those strings and they could lift her. There rabbits that glowed the same blue as the forest around them. There were flowers that she wasn’t sure existed out in the real world that released spores that looked like blue twinkling stars.

No matter what the voice said. This world was not as dangerous or terrible as the world she left behind. That world had hurt her and tormented her and damaged her. That world had nearly destroyed her and this world was not perfect, no, but it was far better than the other one. Truly there was no comparison.

Claire found a meadow full of flowers that all glowed as the forest did. They were only purple, blue, and green. There were a few red ones that stuck out. She smiled. The meadow was beautiful. She’d never seen anything like it. She went over to one of the red flowers. They blossomed up towards the sun, with feelers that reached up to the sky as well. She kneeled in front of it and touched one of the petals. The petals began dripping to the ground, covering the black grass in dark red liquid. Claire touched it and brought it up to her face.

It was blood.

With a cry, she stood and stepped back from the floor, but suddenly the whole meadow was melting, all of the flower’s petals melting to make the ground beneath her a sea of blood.

She backed up quickly, reaching the edge of the trees and running as fast as her legs would carry her away from the meadow.

It wasn’t until she could no longer see the meadow over her shoulder that she finally collapsed against a tree and slid down to the ground, her legs shaking too much to keep her upright any longer. There were more flowers at the base of the tree, but she didn’t dare touch them, suddenly fearful they would transform from beautiful blooms to the dripping horrors she’d just escaped from.

The words of the voice came back to her.

 _This world is not as beautiful as you believe it to be._ _This world is no better at all._ _In time you will see._

She swallowed hard.

Perhaps the longer you were here, the more horrifying this world became.

She shook her head.

No.

She was being ridiculous.

That voice was wrong. There were still so many beautiful things about this world. An acid lake and a meadow made of blood-flowers were nothing. It could be so much worse.

Pushing herself to her feet, she continued down the black path through the forest.

* * *

It had now been a week since Claire had fallen into catatonia and it had been two days since Krissy had stopped her constant bedside vigil.

“She’s going to stay that way whether or not you’re next to her,” Ben had told her, “and she’ll wake up whether or not you’re next to her. You need to eat and you need to do something other than sit next to her 24/7.”

She hadn’t agreed. Not at first.

She’d sworn she would stay next to Claire until Claire woke up and that was what she was going to do.

But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that Ben was right, so she finally pushed herself up from her bed, brushed Claire’s hair back from her face one last time, kissed her forehead, and whispered in her ear, “Come back to me soon, alright?” Then she turned on her heel and went into the kitchen for lunch.

Now she was sitting in the living room, watching TV with Ben and Jesse. All three of them were silent and thinking about the girl in the other room. Krissy was starting to wonder if it wouldn’t be better to take her to the hospital, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t risk the asylum getting a hold of her again. If Claire woke up back in the asylum, she’d never forgive her. She might try to kill herself again. What if this time she succeeded?

No. Claire would have to stay with them until she woke up. She had to.

There was no alternative.

* * *

Someone was following her. Claire knew this. She’d seen the shadows out of the corners of her eyes, she’d heard the twigs breaking in the brush behind her, and she’d even heard the breathing of whoever it was.

 _Demons,_ she’d thought over and over again. _It’s demons._

But that was ridiculous.

There weren’t demons in a world like this.

Were there?

Again the words of the voice that she had not heard since her first day there filled her mind and she wondered, not for the first time, if it wasn’t right. There were acid lakes, meadows of flowers that melted into blood, and those weren’t the only horrors she’d experienced since entering this world. Just the other day, she’d come across a rabbit eating from a corpse, blood covering the fur around its mouth. Then she’d come across the lake again. This time it was surrounded by skeletons of fish and other animals as though it had been filled with these bodies already and they’d finally come to the surface. As she’d watched the water lapping up against it, the bones had slowly begun to disintegrate into black dust.

And now she was hiding behind the trunk of a particularly large tree in the forest, hoping that whoever was pursuing her would stop looking around, would give up and walk away. She didn’t know who or what they were, but it couldn’t be anything good.

 _This world is not as beautiful as you believe it to be._ _This world is no better at all._ _In time you will see._

Slowly Claire was beginning to believe this.

* * *

“We’re not taking her to the hospital,” Krissy said firmly at dinner.

It had been eight days.

“Why not?” Jesse retorted. He hadn’t touched his food. “They could take better care of her than we could. She needs to be somewhere that the people know what they’re doing and what they’re dealing with. We don’t. She could _die_ if we don’t take her to the hospital. She’ll _starve_ to death.”

“She could be taken back to the asylum if we take her to the hospital,” Krissy said, voicing her concerns not for the first time. “How do you think she’s going to feel if she ends up waking up in that place after it took her two years to escape it? She’ll feel like dying all over again. We can’t take her to the hospital because if the asylum is searching for she’ll be taken back there. I’m not going to let that happen.”

“If we don’t, she’ll die!” Jesse shouted, jumping to his feet.

“If we do, she’ll try to kill herself!” Krissy shouted back, standing as well.

Ben sat between them, picking at his food, staring at it intently, refusing to join in the conversation. Krissy couldn’t say she entirely blamed him.

“We’re not taking her,” she said again. “We’re not.”

She left the dinner table and headed to her room.

* * *

Claire was huddled under a bunch of brambles, shaking in the rain that was falling from the sky. The droplets were as bioluminescent as the rest of the forest. She watched them hit the brambles around her before sliding to the forest floor. The grass kept lighting up every time the droplets hit it, just as it did when she walked on.

Whoever was tailing her hadn’t stopped. They were hiding, just out of sight. She’d only ever seen their shadow out of the corner of her eye. She kept trying to catch them off guard, kept trying to see what they looked like when they didn’t think she noticed them, but they were too quick. They seemed to know everything she was going to do before she did and were far out of sight before she moved.

 _This world is not as beautiful as you believe it to be._ _This world is no better at all._ _In time you will see._

She’d been thinking about those words a lot lately and, staring at her hands, Claire wondered if there even _was_ a way out of this forest. Maybe she’d fallen into this world because the outside world was too hard for her to deal with. Maybe her mind thought she could deal with the terrors of this world better than she could deal with the pain of the other.

She was starting to wonder if maybe that pain wasn’t the better option. At least she was accustomed to dealing with that pain. At least she knew what she had to do to survive that pain. The same could not be said for the terror of this world.

There were footsteps again, but this time they were coming from in front of her. Claire stayed very still, but the footsteps continued growing louder and louder until they stopped directly in front of her.

She could see a pair of shoes from her place in the brambles. They were schoolgirl shoes. They shone in the dull light. She blinked at them and very slowly extricated herself from her hiding place.

When she was standing visible in the forest again, she came face to face with a little girl with pale blonde hair, gray eyes, and an expression that looked as confused as her own.

She was staring at her six year old self.

It was odd seeing herself as she’d been before anything like this ever could’ve happened. She recognized the black jumper she was wearing and the white shirt underneath. She recognized the frilly white socks she was wearing and those shiny black shoes. She recognized the pin that was holding her hair back from her face. It was strange to think that at this point in her life she didn’t know that angels were real and so very different from the kind her father had taught her about in Sunday school. It was strange to think that she didn’t know about demons or vampires or werewolves. She didn’t know about wendigos or ghosts or ghouls. She didn’t know about hunting and the devil was only as real as the brittle pages that were held within her Bible.

“How did this happen to us?” she asked so softly she could barely hear herself.

The girl in front of her only blinked and cocked her head to one side.

Suddenly Claire was angry. “What are you doing here anyway?” she asked. “Why are you tormenting me with the past?”

The girl blinked again and said, “I’m supposed to show you the way out of here.”

“I don’t _want_ to find the way out of here,” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Fine,” the girl said.

Instantly, the world around them began to melt away. The trees collapsed into a molten river. The grass turned into lava. The rain became fire falling from the sky. The ground beneath Claire’s feet was hard rock. When she blinked her forest paradise had turned into a volcanic wasteland. She turned and watched with horror as her six-year-old self morphed from a little girl into a monster that towered above her. It had glowing red eyes and large leathery wings. When it opened its mouth, she could see fire hovering in its throat.

She screamed.

 _This is what your world will become,_ the monster hissed at her as skeletal creatures with glowing orange eyes crawled up from the lava and began to surround her. They clawed at her, tearing at her clothes. She tried to push them away, but their claws tore through her skin just as easily and soon she was bleeding from gashes all over her arms.

 _This world is not as beautiful as you believe it to be,_ the monster roared. _This world is no better at all._ _You do not belong here. You belong in reality. You have work to do there. But you cannot return to your world unless it is by choice._

Claire shrieked again.

“No!” she screamed as the creatures continued to claw at her. “No! Take me back! Take me back! Take me _back_!”

* * *

“It’s been nearly two weeks, Krissy,” Jesse was saying. They were sitting in the living room together. Krissy was standing with her arms crossed over her chest and glaring. Jesse was sitting in one of the armchairs, his arms crossed as well. “We have to take her. We don’t have a choice anymore.”

Krissy’s nails dug into her arms. She didn’t want to agree. She didn’t want to take Claire’s limp body from her bedroom to a hospital. She’d been out of the cabin recently just to see if anyone was looking for Claire, but it seemed that she was relatively unknown. Taking Claire to a hospital seemed far safer than she’d ever assumed it to be and now, as Jesse spoke of it, she felt guilty for not doing it sooner.

“We can’t take care of her here,” he added. “They can. They’ll give her food and water and medicine that we don’t have. Maybe they’ll even know how to wake her up. We can’t just continue letting her waste away in there.”

Krissy pressed her lips together. She didn’t want to admit that Jesse was right. Taking Claire to the hospital was still going to complicate things significantly, but Claire wouldn’t die and a world without Claire was becoming less and less of a world that Krissy wanted to experience living in.

“Fine,” she said softly, looking from the window to the hardwood beneath her feet. “Fine. You’re right. We need to take her.”

Jesse let out a breath that he had been holding. “Alright,” he said in a relieved sort of voice. “Alright, I’ll be in the car.”

He pushed himself to his feet and walked out of the living room and towards the front door of the cabin. Krissy walked to her room and pushed open the door.

She was expecting to see Claire, still lying on the bed unmoving save for her chest which would be moving up and down in time with her breathing, but she came upon an empty room. She saw drawers open and emptied. She noticed her duffle bag was missing and when she looked in her closet half of her hunting tools were gone.

Instantly panic began to set into her chest. She whipped around the room, though she already knew what had happened and when she saw the open window that only confirmed it.

"Oh god,” she whispered, staring out the window, staring at the curtains fluttering in the summer breeze that was making its way into the room. The breeze lifted her own hair. “Oh god,” she said again and she fell to her knees.

Claire was gone. She’d awoken and she’d gone.

Krissy felt as though someone were squeezing her heart in her chest, trying to tear it out of her with a butter knife and she couldn’t stop them.

“No!” she groaned in a voice that sounded just as pained as she felt.

But it didn’t matter what she said or what she did. Claire was gone. She had vanished.

Whatever had happened inside her head had convinced her she didn’t need her.

And Krissy wasn’t sure if that didn’t hurt more than her never waking up would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To anyone feeling unfulfilled by this ending, just know there is going to be a sequel. It is already in the works and will be posted, hopefully, early next year. It's title is Nations of the Homeless.


End file.
